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SOLAR 2013 Featured Speakers

SOLAR 2013 welcomes many distinguished speakers to be featured throughout the week of the conference. Check the detailed program for specific dates and times.

  • Portrait of Bill McKibben, author and activist. photo ©Nancie Battaglia Bill McKibben, President and Co-Founder, 350.org - He will be speaking on Thursday, April 18th from 10:15-11:45. Bill McKibben, a well known environmental author and activist, is the founder of 350.org, an international climate change campaign. 350.org is named for the safe level of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, 350 parts per million.
  • Kevin Knobloch pic Kevin Knobloch, President, Union of Concerned Scientists - He will be speaking on Wednesday, April 17th from 10:15-11:45. Kevin Knobloch brings 32 years of experience in public policy, government, advocacy, and media to his job as president of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). He is knowledgeable about a range of environmental and national security issues including global warming, natural resource and clean energy economics, renewable and efficient vehicle technologies, nuclear weapons, forest management, and corporate responsibility, as well as legislative strategy and procedure.
  • Photo Credit: Marcus Gloger Jochen Flasbarth, President, German Federal Environment Agency - He will be speaking on Thursday, April 18th from 10:15-11:45. Jochen Flasbarth has led Germany’s largest national environmental authority since September 2009. Prior to working for the German Federal Environment Agency, Flasbarth was the head of Directorate-General "Nature Conservation and Sustainable Use of Natural Resources" at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.
  • David Wedepohl pic David Wedepohl, Head of Markets & Communications, German Solar Industry Association - He will be speaking on Friday, April 19th from 10:15-11:45. David Wedepohl is a radio journalist by training who studied on both sides of the atlantic. He holds a masters degree in Journalism and Public Affairs which he achieved as a Fulbright scholar. His professional experience included working for the German embassy in Washington, DC as a press officer. He first came in touch with the solar industry while working for an American consulting company and now heads the department for market and communication at the German Solar Industry Association.
  • Laura Bankey, Director of Conservation, National Aquarium - Laura Bankey will be speaking at ASES Annual Awards Banquet on Wednesday, April 17th from 7:00-10:00 PM in the Hyatt Constellation Ballroom.
  • straight. verticle crop Rhone Resch, President & CEO, SEIA - He will be speaking on Friday, April 19th from 10:15-11:45.Rhone Resch is the President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the national trade association of the solar energy industry in the United States. Representing an industry of over 5,000 companies and 100,000 employees, Rhone is the architect of the association's strategic priorities.
  • John Bryne NEW pic John Byrne, Director, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy - John Byrne will be speaking at SOLAR 2013 on Wednesday, April 17th at 10:15-11:45. John Byrne is the Distinguished Professor of Energy and Climate Policy and Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy (CEEP) at the University of Delaware.
  • Eric Wesoff pic Eric Wesoff, Editor in Chief, Green Tech Media - Prior to joining Greentech Media, Eric Wesoff founded Sage Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields. He also was the publisher of the Venture Power newsletter, a subscription-only newsletter covering venture-capital investment in renewable energy.
  • Eric Martinot pic Eric Martinot, Report Author, REN21 Renewables Global Futures Report - He will be speaking on Wednesday, April 17th from 10:15-11:45. Dr. Eric Martinot has worked in renewable energy for 25 years and is an internationally recognized scholar, writer, and teacher on the subject. He is report author of the pioneering REN21 Renewables Global Futures Report, and was lead author from 2005-2010 of the REN21 Renewables Global Status Report, an annual synthesis of markets and policies.
  • clifford Tony Clifford, CEO, Standard Solar Inc. - He will be speaking on Friday, April 19th from 10:15-11:45. Tony Clifford is the Chief Executive Officer of Standard Solar, Inc. Since 2007 Mr. Clifford has led Standard Solar’s rapid growth into a nationally known PV developer/ EPC. Mr. Clifford began his career at Solarex Corporation, later acquired by British Petroleum and known as BP Solar.
  • Travis Price pic Travis L. Price III, Fellow of AIA - Travis Price will speak on The Mythic Modern: mythology, ecology, and technology...the spirit of place at the Emerging Architecture session of SOLAR 2013. This session takes place on Friday, April 19th from 3:15-4:45.
  • Patricia Hoffman pic Patricia Hoffman, Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy - She will be speaking on Thursday, April 18th from 10:15-11:45. Patricia Hoffman is the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability at the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability leads the Department of Energy’s (DOE) efforts to modernize the electric grid through the development and implementation of national policy pertaining to electric grid reliability and the management of research, development, and demonstration activities for “next generation” electric grid infrastructure technologies.
  • Alice Le Blanc photo Alice LeBlanc, Environmental and Economic Consulting - She will be speaking on Thursday, April 18th from 10:15-11:45. Alice LeBlanc is an economist and an independent consultant who has worked for the past twenty years to promote market mechanisms as tools to address climate change and sustainable development. Her clients have included the Urban Land Institute and other NGOs, USEPA, Government of Australia, World Bank, United Nations, Commission for Environmental Cooperation and private sector clients in the U.S., Canada and the EU.
  • Elaine Ulrich Elaine Ulrich, Solar Energy Technologies Program, U.S. Department of Energy - Elaine Ulrich will speak at SOLAR 2013 on Friday, April 19th at 10:15-11:45. A former AAAS fellow, Elaine has spent the past few years working on renewable energy in the office of former senator Ken Salazar, the Science & Technology committee in the US house of Representatives, DOE's office of Strategic Planning and Analysis in EERE, and she recently served as the Sr. Legislative Assistant to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, where she built a comprehensive solar energy portfolio.