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Robert Aldrich, PhD
Clean Energy Business Advisory; Renewable Energy Portfolio Advisor and Investor
Dr. Robert Aldrich is a clean energy business advisor to New York State, a renewable energy portfolio advisor and invester, and a member of NIREC's TCAB.
Bob has over 40 years of experience in the energy industry with interests focused on new business development and technology commercialization arising from globalization, environmental quality and energy deregulation.
In 2003, he was elected a member of the Board of Directors of DayStar Technologies, Inc, a publicly traded solar energy company. He served as chair of the board from 2008 to 2009, and interim CEO in 2009. From 2000 to 2005, he served as chief executive officer of Dirigo Energy, Inc., an energy risk management company implementing full requirements on-site energy supply for big box retailers. He has also served as a director and interim president of TTI Technologies, Inc., a developer of solid waste fluidized bed combustion systems; chairman of Burstpower, Inc., a developer of ultracapacitor energy storage products; president, Commercial Operations, Solo Energy Corporation, a catalytic microturbine developer; and resident executive, leadership and management training, for the Onshore Oil Company of Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Earlier in his career, Bob served as group vice president of Electric Power Research Institute, the national R&D arm of the electric power industry; as president of Texel Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Alcan Aluminum Corporation, developing synthetic electronic ceramics; and as a member of the Board of Directors of Ramtron International, an Australian public company developing non-volatile memory chips.
Since 1992, Bob has been a member of the American Management Association’s International Council. He has served as a technology applications reviewer for the National Technology Transfer Center in support of the commercialization of Missile Defense Agency technology. He is a former member of the Engineering College Advisory Board and Energy Management Council at Syracuse University, and adviser to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Incubator Center.
Bob holds a PhD in Solid State Science and Technology from Syracuse University and a Bachelor of Metallurgical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
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Bruce Berkoff
Chairman, LCD TV Association
Bruce Berkoff has a long history and a wealth of global experience in the technology industry, having held key marketing (CMO) positions at several leading display and solar related companies around the world. As Chairman of the LCD TV Association his charter is to help “inform, promote, improve, and connect” the entire LCD TV supply chain and their related ecosystems, and remains an active speaker in the industry. Bruce was previously the chief marketing officer (CMO), and strategy officer, of the Energy and Display Systems group at Applied Materials (the world’s factory equipment leader in display, solar, and semiconductors), involved with their display, solar, LED, OLED and battery products (ranging from PECVD, PVD, to MOCVD, etc). Prior to that he was CMO of Ascent Solar, CEO of Enuclia Semiconductor and, for over 6 years while living in Seoul, South Korea, Bruce was the EVP/CMO of LG Philips LCD (today, LG Display, a global leader in TFT LCDs), helping to launch new flat display categories like wide aspect notebooks and monitors and the entire LCD TV industry, leading their efforts globally from product planning to product marketing and market intelligence (He served on LG Display’s BOD as well, later on).
Bruce brings many years of experience in the high tech arena, having held various Silicon Valley-based executive roles with companies such as Philips Components, UMAX Computer Corp.,Radius and Supermac. He is well-known for his visionary keynote addresses, panel chairmanships and other roles at display and electronics industry events, including the Symposium on Information Displays (SID) Business & Investor Conferences, USDC (US Display Consortium) Conferences, DisplayForum Europe, HDTV Forum, Asia SID (ASID), EuroDisplays (ESID), the U.S. Flat Panel Display (US FPD) Conference, the Flat Information Display (FID) Conference and the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, as well as moderating sessions and panels at marketing forums by Frost & Sullivan, etc.
Bruce holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in physics and biophysics from Princeton and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively, and also has display-related patents both granted and pending in the U.S. and China. He has sat on various related public company BODs over time, such as LG Display (LPL), InFocus(INFS), and Unipixel.
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Cheemin Bo-Linn, PhD
CEO and President, Peritus Partners, Inc.
Dr. Cheemin Bo-Linn is the CEO and president of Peritus Partners, Inc., and a member of NIREC's TCAB.
Peritus Partners, Inc, is a global business and marketing consultancy group recognized for helping start-ups to medium size clients achieve sustainable growth and the highest market valuations. Cheemin is also a venture advisor focused on the commercialization and investment of clean technology and developing corporate partnerships.
Prior, Cheemin held senior leadership positions including founder, chief marketing executive, and CEO at start-ups. She has also held several senior executive roles at Fortune 100 global companies, including IBM where she served as a vice-president.
Cheemin has been an invited speaker on clean tech at the United Nations, IEEE, international entrepreneurs associations, and Tier 1 academic/research institutions. She continues to be active in government policy and is a strong advocate of increasing companies’ access to capital for innovative energy investments.
Cheemin is the recipient of the Silicon Valley 2010 Women of Influence award for growing start-ups to mid-size cap growth companies. Previously, she received the YWCA Tribute to Women in Industry Award for her leadership in contributing outstanding profit and revenue growth to top Fortune companies, and AACI’s Silicon Valley Star Award for her contribution to technology.
She is a member of the Board of the Association of Corporate Growth (focused on M&A and capital investments), Clean Tech and Sustainable Industries, Women in Technology, and start-ups. Formerly, she was on the Board of Directors for the American Electronics Association.
Cheemin graduated from the University of Houston with her doctorate degree with domain expertise on Implementing Computer-based Information Systems and Organizational Change, and she completed the Stanford Executive MBA Certificate Program in Strategy.
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Robert C. Bricca, CPA
Bob is a successful lean, sales growth and ISO practitioner. He is an innovative industrial recycler, skilled negotiator, relationship builder and communicator. He was responsible for the Northern Nevada energy efficiency training and certification program for commercial and public building operators that resulted in 233 energy-saving project proposals over six years saving 0.62 trillion Btu’s.
Bob is currently the co-founder and a project manager at Nevada Industry Excellence, an entrepreneurship program at the University of Nevada, Reno. Prior to that he served as executive director of The Children’s Cabinet, Inc., in Reno, Nevada from 2000 to 2002.
As owner, CEO, CFO and human resources manager of Kin-Line, Inc., Bob took the fabricating business from $8 to $60 million in 7 years with profit margins among the industry’s highest. He created a 300-associate, 24/7 operating culture with single digit turnover and an applicant waiting list and designed and implemented ISO 9002 and Zero Accident Programs. The company was sold to B-Line Systems, Inc. in 1990, where Bob remained until 2000.
Bob earned a bachelor of science and commerce in accounting as Santa Clara University. He is a non-practicing Certified Public Accountant. He has also an MBA instructor on entrepreneurship at the University of Nevada, Reno.
He has served on the governing boards of area Economic Development Authority), Chamber of Commerce, Nevada Manufacturers’ Association (past president), University of Nevada, Reno College of Business Advisory Board, Washoe County Organizational Effectiveness Committee (past chairperson), and various nonprofit charities.
Bob is the recipient of the Best Business of the Year awards from Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada in 1995 and Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce in 1997.
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Steve Goldberg, Ph.D.
Partner, Venrock
Steve Goldberg joined Venrock in 2009 after serving as CEO of several early stage companies including DataRunway, Vidient, Arcwave, and CoWave Networks. He was vice president of research and development at Nokia Internet Communications and VP and GM of the Wireless Communications Division at Cylink Corporation. Steve has also held senior management and engineering positions at Trimble Navigation and Hewlett Packard. Additionally, Steve enjoys teaching and public speaking, and has delivered a number of academic and industrial courses in the areas of wireless, telecom, and signal processing.
Steve received a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from the Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He earned a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara
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Ian McNeil
Co-founder, Brennan Capital Partners
Ian McNeil has a long history in finance and entrepreneurship, and has been a financier and operator in multiple industries. Ian has built several startups and understands the risks entrepreneurs face, the courage it takes to start a new venture and the process of growing a successful organization. His passion for young businesses, growth opportunities and helping entrepreneurs succeed has paved the way for many years of success in early stage ventures and investment management.
Ian has considerable business experience at senior executive levels in a variety of business sectors, including mineral exploration and mining, telecommunications, software development, Internet marketing, franchise operations, oil and gas, product manufacturing, and retail development and operations. Immediately prior to co-founding BCP, Ian served as Chairman and CEO of Searchlight Minerals Corp., a publicly traded mineral exploration company. During his five year tenure, Ian raised in excess of $60 million for this junior company. He has founded, operated, scaled, and sold companies and thinks of himself as an entrepreneur first; a results-oriented consultant second.
Ian is experienced in a wide range of operational functions with a proven track record of raising capital from variety of sources, including angel investors, venture capitalists and institutions. He prides himself on being a high-performance strategic advisor, bringing his clients an eclectic range of experience from several different industries. A proponent of building strong operations teams by defining key performance indicators, Ian builds a dashboard to monitor and constantly improve operations. With this platform in place, he identifies and secures the correct amount and appropriate type of capital to fuel and support the operational growth.
In addition to working with clients, Ian is also an active private equity investor and advisor to seed and early stage ventures.
He has significant experience as a board member with both public and private companies and understands well the SEC reporting requirements of today’s very complex regulatory environment.
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Forrest Mertens, MBA
CEO, SunOne Solutions
Forrest Mertens is the chief executive Oofficer of SunOne Solutions, an ecosystems services and environmental markets solutions provider with offices in California, Colorado, Nebraska, New York, Texas, and Sao Paulo, Brazil. Forrest also previously held the CFO and COO positions at SunOne.
Before joining SunOne, Forrest spent seven years at MVC Capital (NYSE: MVC), a publicly traded private equity and venture capital firm, where he was responsible for sourcing, executing, and managing investments in early and growth‐stage companies. He worked closely with the boards and management teams of dozens of portfolio companies, and served as a director of Phoenix Coal (TSX: PHC) through its rapid growth and public listing. Forrest developed sector expertise in several diverse industries, such as mineral resources, renewable energy, SaaS, wireless telecommunications, mobile asset tracking systems, specialty chemicals, biometrics, and imprint lithography.
Forrest serves on the advisory board of KIN Global, a nonprofit that serves as a collaboration platform for innovation leaders from various businesses, NGO’s, academia and government. Forrest also serves as a mentor for the Kellogg Venture Community to advise entrepreneurs and connects them with resources to help grow their businesses. Forrest earned a MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, where he graduated with highest honors, and a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration from Boston University.
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Saxon Peters, JD
Associate, Corporate Securities, Greenberg Traurig
Saxon is an Associate in Greenberg Traurig’s Corporate & Securities practice group. His practice includes early stage company counseling, debt and equity financings, mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, corporate partnerships, and general corporate counseling.
Saxon has represented companies in a wide range of industries, including clean technology, biotechnology, software and hardware design, and online services.
Prior to joining Greenberg Traurig, Saxon was an associate in the emerging companies practice group of a national law firm in its Silicon Valley Office
He earned his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, graduating magna cum laude and Order of the Coif.
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Bill Reichert, MBA
Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures
Reichert has over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and an operating executive. Since joining Garage in 1998, Bill has focused on early-stage information technology and materials science companies. He sits on the boards of CaseStack, WhiteHat, ClearFuels, cFares, and ThermoCeramix. Prior to Garage, Bill was a co-founder or senior executive in several venture-backed technology startups, including Trademark Software, The Learning Company, and Academic Systems. Earlier in his career, he worked at McKinsey & Company, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., and the World Bank.
Bill earned a B.A. at Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Stanford University. He was a founding board member and a chairman of the Churchill Club, and a Charter Member of the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs. Currently he is the chairman of the Small Fund Roundtable of the VC Taskforce and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
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Michelle Rowe Hallsten, JD
Shareholder, Greenberg Traurig
Michelle Rowe Hallsten is a shareholder in Greenberg Traurig's Corporate & Securities practice group. She represents emerging and established companies in a variety of practice areas, including general corporate, securities, corporate governance, private debt and equity financings, venture capital, mergers and acquisitions and public offerings. Michelle's client base covers many industries including technology, healthcare, insurance, business services, life sciences, retail, publishing, professional services and real estate.
After receiving her law degree from the University of Alabama School of Law, Michelle served as a staff attorney in the Division of Corporation Finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, DC. She was also in private practice in the Washington, DC office of Rogers & Wells for four years before relocating to Sacramento in 1990.
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Steve Tourigny
Chief Operating Officer, Clean World Partners
Steve Tourigny has 25 years of extensive operational experience in clean energy, technology and engineering companies. He has worked in renewables and traditional energy industries, machinery and electrical/electronics manufacturing. In 2010 he took a position as chief operating officer at Clean World Partners, a company that accelerates the deployment of emergin waste conversion projects by licensing critical technologies and creating value added partnerships among public-and private-sector shareholders. He has run a business development consulting firm since 2004 that focuses on technical products, energy, equipment and process controls. Prior to that, he held positions as vice president of Altergy Systems and at EBARA Technologies, Inc. Earlier in his career, he worked at Oxford Plasma Tech, Source Engineering and Norton Advanced Ceramic Materials.
Steve obained a bachelor of science degree in mechancial engineering, specializing in material science and processing, from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
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