Me in 15 seconds:

I’ve been a startup founder, consulting firm CEO, non-profit Executive Director, wilderness guide, and home remodeler.

I love to follow my curiosity and learn.

I dedicate time every day to read, write, meditate and exercise.

I grew up in St. Louis and have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 20 years.

My Mission:

I aim to help investors in the energy sector make better investments that maximize returns while making a real contribution to the well-being of people and the planet.

I’m on sabbatical to study risk and decision-making related to energy systems.

I led business development at Reach Labs to deliver long-range wireless power (no wires or batteries) in industrial, asset management, and supply chain applications.

I founded UtilityScore (a software company backed by Y Combinator) which provided homebuyers with estimates for their utility costs. Our product brought a new level of transparency to the process of buying, renting, and renovating housing.

I was the CEO of a consulting firm (acquired by Frontier Energy) specializing in clean energy to commercialize new technology in buildings, vehicles, and power plants.

I was the Executive Director of Build It Green (nonprofit) to mainstream green building, where I built a network of 2,500 building industry stakeholders (included contractors, suppliers, realtors, lenders, utilities, and public agencies.)

I’ve loved the outdoors since I was a teenager: I led mountaineering expeditions in Alaska, spent months backpacking in the Rockies, and climbed in national parks across the country. 

My wilderness experiences led me to want to do something to protect these beautiful areas. I went to work in construction to build homes that were energy efficient and solar-powered. Shortly after that, I started a company to manufacture industrial-scale composting systems and became executive director of a nonprofit to educate builders, architects, realtors, lenders, and governments on solar energy and green building benefits.

By 2008 I was CEO of a company that was commercializing fuel-cell vehicles, carbon capture at power plants and making energy-efficient buildings. Things were looking good: the Obama administration earmarked billions of dollars in federal funding to create jobs in the energy sector, and my company won multi-year contracts valued at over $60M. Overnight, we grew from fifteen to fifty employees.

But the results were underwhelming. Government agencies continued spinning success stories, but in reality, the mazes of regulatory requirements and bureaucratic processes made real progress impossible.

I became disillusioned with my work. I was surrounded by phony bureaucrats who claimed they cared about the environment but who really only cared about job security. And the people who really did care about the environment—the people like me—they were as blind as I was.

Thinking and feeling like you’re doing the right thing doesn’t mean you are. It took me a long time to admit many of my beliefs about energy were false because my sense of identity and self-worth was tangled up with those beliefs. I thought I was doing good and protecting the environment. But I was chasing a fantasy. 

The following false beliefs prevented me and others like me from seeing clearly and weighing tradeoffs.

• Fossil fuels are running out
• Modern nuclear power plants are dangerous.
• Solar and wind power with battery storage can replace fossil fuels
• Electric cars reduce CO2 emissions
• Fracking contaminates the water supply and doesn’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

But it’s now clear that I was using those ideas as moral camouflage, and I was able to maintain them only by remaining ignorant about the real costs and benefits of different energy sources. That ignorance prevented me from making a real difference, and I see people making the same mistakes today. 

I’ve dedicated most of my life to protecting the environment. But I was wrong about how to do it. I thought I was acting morally and protecting the well-being of people and the planet, but in fact, I was harming both. 

If we’re serious about tackling climate change, protecting the environment, and helping people climb out of energy poverty around the world, we need to stop chasing fantasies around solar and wind energy. We need to start weighing all the costs and benefits of all energy sources—from wind and solar, to natural gas, coal, and nuclear. 

Every day we spend chasing fantasies causes unnecessary harm and suffering. Let’s pursue energy solutions that benefit people and the planet.

Principles serve to guide our decisions and interactions with other people. I value the process of writing down and thinking about my core principles, which I describe here.