Jan Pepper

Jan Pepper has over 30 years of energy and utility experience, with a focus on renewable energy contracting and financing. She joined Peninsula Clean Energy as CEO in May 2016 and has grown the organization to its current state. 

Jan was elected to the city council of Los Altos in 2012 and served as Mayor from December 2014 to December 2015. She was re-elected in 2016 for a second four-year term and served as Mayor from December 2019 to December 2020. She served on the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District from 2013 to February 2017. She earned a BS in civil engineering and an MBA, both from Stanford University. Jan is a registered professional engineer in California.

Jan formerly worked at Silicon Valley Power and has founded four energy-related start-ups. At APX, she developed and pioneered the first use of renewable energy credits, which are now the standard currency for trading and tracking renewable power.

Dan Adler

Dan Adler is Senior Advisor for Climate Finance at the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) and the Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (IBank), where he is leading the development of the Climate Catalyst Fund. Prior to this role, he was Vice President for Policy at the Energy Foundation, a partnership of philanthropies advancing clean energy markets across the U.S. He was previously Managing Director of the California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF) and President of CalCEF Ventures, where he led the firm’s efforts to identify and catalyze transformational new investment theses across venture capital and project finance.

Dr. Manuel Pastor

Dr. Manuel Pastor is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He currently directs the Equity Research Institute at USC. Pastor holds an economics Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Pastor’s research has generally focused on issues of the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities – and the social movements seeking to change those realities. He has published numerous books on different aspects of these issues.

Irena Asmundson

Irena Asmundson is the Managing Director of the California Policy Research Initiative and a Policy Fellow at the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research. From 2013 to mid-2021 she was the Chief Economist at the California Department of Finance, where she oversaw the demographic, economic, and revenue forecasts for the state, and advised the Governor on economic policy issues. Previously she was a Senior Economist at the International Monetary Fund, providing advice on international trade and monetary system issues, as well as providing forecasts on a range of countries including the United Kingdom and Afghanistan. She has also served as a Staff Economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. A second-generation California native, she received her BS in Mathematics and Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her PhD in Economics from Stanford University.

Hasan Ikhrata

Hasan Ikhrata is the Executive Director of the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), and is considered one of the preeminent transportation planning experts in the nation. SANDAG is the leading research, planning, and transportation agency for the San Diego region. Mr. Ikhrata leads a staff of about 350 professionals who develop public policy initiatives for elected officials on numerous issues encompassing population growth, transportation, environmental management, economic development, municipal finance, binational coordination, and public safety. Mr. Ikhrata has over 30 years of public and private sector transportation planning experience in the region.

Adrian Martinez

Adrian Martinez is a Senior Attorney for Earthjustice, and serves as the Chair of Earthjustice’s Transportation Practice Group. Adrian has been a leader in advancing zero-emissions transportation and clean air policies for nearly two decades. He has successfully advocated for local, regional, and state agencies to pursue zero-emissions technologies. He worked with community groups and other environmental groups to secure more than a billion dollars in authorized investments in zero-emissions transportation infrastructure in California through the Public Utilities Commission. He also has been very active in advancing zero-emission buses, trucks, and cargo equipment in Southern California.

Minda Berbeco

Minda Berbeco, PhD, is a manager in the Strategic Incentives Division of the Bay Area Air Quality Management overseeing the on-road section, moving fleets to zero emission and near-zero emission technologies. Annually, the Division administers approximately $100 million in new grant revenue to support programs focused primarily on the reduction of emissions from mobile sources in the Bay Area, including agricultural equipment, ferries, trucks and other mobile sources of air pollution. Previous to coming to the Air District she was the Director of the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club where she led a team of staff and volunteers to push for zero emission technology and conservation efforts throughout the Bay Area.

Dr. Daniel Sperling 

Daniel Sperling

Dr. Daniel Sperling is Distinguished Blue Planet Prize Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy, founding Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies, founding chair of the Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, and Economy at the University of California, Davis, and a member of the California Air Resources Board (CARB). Dr. Sperling has led ITS-Davis to international prominence by building strong partnerships with industry, government, and the environmental community, integrating interdisciplinary research and education programs, and connecting research with public outreach and education.

Jaime Alonso

Jaime Alonso is the Executive Director at Grid Alternatives, Inland Empire. Jaime Alonso was born and raised in the Coachella Valley. Like many in the region, he came from a family of Mexican migrant farmworkers. Raised in a trailer park in an unincorporated area of Riverside County, Jaime recognized early on that access to adequate housing, safe drinking water and reliable energy sources were not readily available. This recognition motivated him upon his return to the Coachella Valley after graduating from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2005 to become active with Inland Congregations United for Change (ICUC).

Ali Chehrehsaz

Ali Chehrehsaz is a founding partner at TerraVerde Energy and serves as the Chief Executive Officer. Over his years at TerraVerde, Ali has spent much of his time leading the development of TerraVerde’s approach to project analysis, engineering, development, and implementation. Prior to joining TerraVerde, Ali managed development and implementation of utility scale solar projects, as well as working as a project engineer in the oil sands upgrading industry.