Board of Directors
Tom McDaniel acquired a tremendous amount of experience in the energy industry during his 37 years with Edison International, EIX, where he served as CEO of the Company’s independent power and financial service companies, chief financial officer of EIX, and held a variety of management positions at Southern California Edison. Since retiring from EIX in 2008, Mr. McDaniel has continued to take an active leadership role in the energy, cleantech and healthcare sectors. He currently serves as a director of SunPower Corp (NASDAQ: SPWRA), a leading manufacturer developer and installer of high efficiency solar systems for the residential, commercial and utility markets domestically and internationally. Mr. McDaniel is a director of the SemGroup Corporation (NASDAQ: SEMG), a midstream oil and gas service company with pipeline and storage operations in the US, Canada and the UK. He also serves as a director of Cypress Envirosystems, energy efficiency, and as an advisor to On Ramp Wireless, smart grid/meter communication networks for the electric, gas and water sectors, and Coda Electric Automotive, electric transportation and energy storage.
Stephan Dolezalek, Director
Stephan is Managing Director and Group Leader, CleanTech at VantagePoint Capital Partners. He has spent more than 25 years in Silicon Valley working exclusively with technology-driven companies. He joined VantagePoint in 1999 and has led the Firm’s CleanTech Group since its inception in 2002. He is an active participant in numerous CleanTech advisory groups, including the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) Leadership Council, the Center for American Progress (CAP) Clean Tech Council and the University of Texas Energy Management and Innovation Center Advisory Board. At VantagePoint, Stephan previously served as head or co-head of the Firm’s Software and Life Sciences Groups. Prior to joining VantagePoint, Stephan was a senior partner with Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison acting as Managing Partner of that Firm’s Palo Alto Office, Head of the Business and Technology Group and Chairman of the Life Sciences Group. He is a graduate of the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia (BCP) and the University of Virginia School of Law (JD) and he serves on the board of the University of Virginia School of Architecture Foundation.
Robert Gill, Director
Robert Gill is a serial CEO who has managed several emerging growth companies and multiple turn-around situations with a record of achieving strong shareholder value. He has years of experience in general management, sales and marketing, operations and engineering for high-technology corporations and has successfully completed several acquisitions and divestitures. In 1996, Gill formed The Topaz Group, his consulting services firm for corporations and private equity investors. He is chairman of AdPay, Inc., and a member of the board of directors of Tendril and serves on their audit and compensation committees. He earned a BSEE from Indiana Tech, an MSEE from Purdue University and an MBA from Pepperdine University. Gill also serves as chairman of the board for the Boulder Innovation Center, chairman emeritus of the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at the Leeds Business School at the University of Colorado and continues as chairman of their development committee. Gill is a member of the Board of Trustees of Indiana Institute of Technology. He was the recipient of the Boulder, Colorado Esprit Entrepreneur Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998.
Gregory Kats, Director
Mr. Kats is Venture Partner at Good Energies. He recently introduced and helped negotiate $100 million strategic investment by St. Gobain in Sage, and guided securing a $90 million DOE loan guarantee. Greg developed a partnership with TIAA-CREF establishing $50 million VC investment vehicle within TIAA’s real estate group to invest behind Good Energies’ energy efficiency and green building investments. He serves on a half dozen boards, and is Sustainability Advisor to CalPERS. Greg served 5 years as the Director of Financing for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at US DOE. He was the Founding Chair of the International Performance Measurement & Verification Protocol, the technical basis for >$10 billion building efficiency/green upgrades, translated into 10 languages. Earlier, Greg held senior management and marketing positions in London, Paris and Geneva. He is a founder of the American Council on Renewable Energy, and the New Resource Bank. Greg is the Founding Chair of the National Chapter of the US Green Building Council. He earned an MBA from Stanford University and, concurrently, an MPA from Princeton University and is a Certified Energy Manager. Greg authored Greening Our Built World: Costs, Benefits and Strategies (Island Press, 2010). He is a frequent keynote speaker at national clean-energy technology, venture capital, and real estate conferences.
Suedeen G. Kelly, Director
Suedeen G. Kelly is an internationally recognized energy regulatory attorney and former commissioner with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Suedeen is a partner at the law firm of Patton Boggs where she co-chairs the Public Policy and Regulatory Department. She was nominated by Presidents Bush and Obama to serve three terms as FERC commissioner and also served as regulatory counsel for the California Independent System Operator and as chairwoman and commissioner for the Public Service Commission of New Mexico. Suedeen currently serves on the Smart Grid Advisory Committee of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the advisory council of the Women’s Council on Energy and Environment, and as a council member for the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. Kelly earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Rochester and a juris doctor from the Cornell Law School.
Andrew Zalasin, Director
Andrew Zalasin is a General Partner with RRE Ventures. He is a Director of K2 Consulting, Odyssey Logistics, Tendril and Semtek, Inc. and is involved actively in the firm’s investments in OnDeck Capital and Peek, among others. From 1991-1996, Andrew was with the firm of Mound, Cotton & Wollan, where he specialized in structuring, negotiating and litigating complex corporate, commercial and intellectual property matters. From 1983-1988, he managed day-to-day operations, evaluated potential acquisition targets and negotiated the purchase of pharmacies for Jallo Pharmacies, Inc. While at Jallo, he designed, implemented and maintained pharmacy-related software systems.
Adrian Tuck, CEO
Adrian has more than 20 years of executive management and leadership experience in a variety of high-tech fields. As CEO, he is responsible for driving Tendril’s strategic direction and has built a solid customer base, a world-class internal team, and a strong set of partnerships and investors for Tendril. Prior to joining Tendril, Adrian served as both interim CEO and executive vice president of Ember Corporation, a leading semiconductor provider to the Smart Grid, where he guided the company’s market strategy through its critical early-growth stage. As an early pioneer of the Internet of Things market, Adrian was instrumental in the development of the ZigBee standard and served as the vice-chair of the ZigBee Alliance for a number of years.
Recognizing the role that policy will play in shaping the Smart Grid and Home Energy Management sectors early on, Adrian has worked tirelessly to secure an active voice within policymaking at public utility commissions and on Capitol Hill. He has testified before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee as well as the Federal Communications Commission on such topics as technology and the Internet, and energy and the environment. He participated in the White House’s Smart Grid Leadership Meeting with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, and currently serves as a regular advisor to the White House on the topic of the Smart Grid. Adrian has received the honor of being named to The Networked Grid 100: Movers and Shakers of the Smart Grid and now sits on the board of the GridWise Alliance, as well as the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder. Adrian received his education at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the British Army’s prestigious officer training academy.
Tim Enwall, Chief Information Officer
Tim has 25 years of high-tech business management experience. As Founder and CIO, Tim has overseen the growth of the business from inception and is currently responsible for corporate and customer insight. He is also chair of the Demand Response and Smart Grid Coalition, and was recently appointed to the Colorado Governor’s Advisory Committee on Venture Capital Investments. Most recently, he was Vice President and Research Area Director at Gartner, Inc. after the company he founded, Solista, was profitably acquired. Prior to Gartner, Tim launched an entrepreneurial career founding two successful technology companies and began his career with almost a decade at Apple. Tim is active in the community and serves as a mentor to TechStars and business plan competition teams. Tim holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Technology Advisory Board
Ramesh Govindan, University of Southern California
Ramesh received his B. Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras, and his MS and PhD degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. He is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Southern California. His research interests include scalable routing in internetworks, and wireless sensor networks.
Professor Richard Han, University of Colorado
Richard joined the Department of Computer Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder in August 2001 as an Assistant Professor. He leads the MANTIS wireless sensor networking project at CU-Boulder. He received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2002 and IBM Faculty Awards in 2002 and 2003. Prior to joining CU-Boulder, Richard was a Research Staff Member for four years at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, New York. He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and his B.S. in Electrical Engineering, with distinction, from Stanford University.