Tag Archives: Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council

TAEBC welcomes newest board members Trish Starkey, Marc Gibson and Chris Bowles

The Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council is welcoming three new board members amongst its leadership.

First, TAEBC invites Schneider Electric North America’s Trish Starkey to the board.

Trish serves as Business Development Manager for New Energy Landscape Strategic Alliances at Schneider Electric North America. In this position, she develops and supports commercial engagements across the Electric Utility and MicroGrid team.

She also serves as the ambassador to Schneider Electric’s most strategic partners including Dynamic Energy Networks and The Carlyle Group, a global alternative asset manager with $174 billion in assets.

She leads strategic marketing and sales enablement initiatives that foster clear thought leadership and a strong position within the market.

A graduate of Middle Tennessee State University, Trish has a Bachelors in Business Administration and Marketing.

Second, TAEBC welcomes University of Tennessee at Knoxville’s Marc Gibson.

Marc Gibson serves as the Executive Director of Industry & Economic Relations at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In this position, he oversees industrial partnerships at the university, and he manages a business center that collaborates across multiple units on campus including the office of research, office of development, system level partnerships office, career services and others.

Some of his many duties involve executing fundraising efforts and reaching research partnership goals, and he identifies connection points for corporate entities to access university assets. He also works extensively with Oak Ridge National Laboratory Partnerships Directorate to connect multidisciplinary opportunities, while coordinating economic development efforts for the university.

Marc holds a Masters in Sport Administration at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and a Bachelors of Science in Marketing and Sports Management.

Third, TAEBC accepts Bradley’s Chris Bowles to the board.

Chris is a partner with the Bradley law firm in Nashville. His practice focuses on energy development and financing, including the real estate, tax incentives and regulatory aspects of project development.

His work on utility and commercial scale solar energy projects includes some of the largest solar developments in the eastern United States.

He is also active in energy policy, serving as the policy committee chair for the Tennessee Solar Energy Industries Association.

Prior to joining Bradley, Chris worked for Mayor Karl Dean as the first-ever Director of the Nashville Mayor’s Office of Environment and Sustainability.

Energy Mentor Network Spotlight: Jonathan Mills Patrick

The Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council is continuing its series of feature stories highlighting the mentors behind the Energy Mentor Network program offering industry specific expertise.

The Energy Mentor Network‘s goal is to foster the growth of Tennessee advanced energy technologies and startups by connecting entrepreneurs with mentors. This gives Tennessee yet another advantage in grabbing its more than fair share of the $1.4 trillion global advanced energy market.

The Energy Mentor Network is run by the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council in partnership with Launch Tennessee.

In broad strokes, the Energy Mentor Network pairs mentors with promising new companies and entrepreneurs through a structured program involving panel presentations and mentoring sessions.

The purpose of the program is to develop quality startups. After completing the program, startups will have an investable pitch deck, a rock solid business model and a plan to establish more traction. These tools will position Tennessee’s entrepreneurs to raise capital, request other funds like SBIR grants, and scale their company.

This week TAEBC welcomes Jonathan Mills Patrick as its newest domain expert enrolled in the Energy Mentor Network. Patrick is a former C-level finance executive turned strategic consultant with more than 20 years of experience and proven results. His skill set is largely around funding where he has been involved in over $500M in debt/equity deals. Additionally, he works with companies on strategic (where he advises companies from pre-revenue to $7B) planning and decisions and marketing. Jonathan also holds a Marketing degree and has led marketing for a $230M organization.

TAEBC is continuing to accept mentors for the Energy Mentor Program. If you are interested in this opportunity, please visit the “For Mentors” section of the Energy Mentor Network portion of TAEBC’s website.

Energy Mentor Network Company: Peroxygen Systems

The Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council is featuring the companies benefiting from the Energy Mentor Network program, which offers industry specific expertise from experienced mentors.

The Energy Mentor Network‘s goal is to foster the growth of Tennessee advanced energy technologies and startups by connecting entrepreneurs with mentors. This gives Tennessee yet another advantage in grabbing its more than fair share of the $1.3 trillion global advanced energy market.

The Energy Mentor Network is run by the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council in partnership with Launch Tennessee.

In broad strokes, the Energy Mentor Network pairs mentors with promising new companies and entrepreneurs through a structured program involving panel presentations and mentoring sessions.

The purpose of the program is to develop quality startups. After completing the program, startups will have an investable pitch deck, a rock solid business model and a plan to establish more traction. These tools will position Tennessee’s entrepreneurs to raise capital, request other funds like SBIR grants, and scale their company.

This week TAEBC is highlighting EMN company Peroxygen Systems. Peroxygen Systems is a clean chemistry company developing breakthrough technology for on-site hydrogen peroxide production. The startup is working toward fundamentally disrupting the existing manufacturing and distribution model for hydrogen peroxide. Peroxygen Systems’ on-demand electrolyzer can reduce the cost of producing hydrogen peroxide by over 50%, while also completely eliminating the cost and safety issues associated with shipping and handling of high concentration hydrogen peroxide.

TAEBC is currently accepting applications from Tennessee advanced energy companies to apply for the Energy Mentor Network program. If you are interested in this opportunity, please visit the “For Startups” section of the Energy Mentor Network portion of TAEBC’s website.

TAEBC Lunch & Learn features Jetta Wong with the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator

The Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council held an engaging lunch & learn at UBS The Siler-Rhea Group’s office location in Downtown Knoxville.

The event included Jetta Wong, Senior Advisor at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator serving as keynote speaker.

Jetta has over 14 years of experience developing programs and policies that support energy and environment technologies. Prior to joining LACI, Jetta Wong established the Office of Technology Transitions for the United States Department of Energy and served as its first Director. In that capacity, she assisted the private sector, state and local governments, universities, laboratories and other stakeholders and engaged with the Department on the commercialization of new technology.

She spoke about the status of cleantech, several cleantech accomplishments within the Department of Energy, and the organization she works for the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator.

“Cleantech is here to stay, and it’s not just because we want it to but the numbers are there,” said Wong.

She talked about how wind and solar are now competitive in several parts of the country, and that the audience should continue to think about how cleantech can continue to be competitive.

“Since 2008 distributed PV, utility-scale PV, wind power, and batteries have decreased in cost, and that’s what we need to see because that’s what innovation is all about,” said Wong.

She stressed the importance of economics and again that the cleantech sector is here to stay. She also talked about how the U.S. is in competition with China when it comes to cleantech. It’s been recently announced that China will invest $360 billion by 2020 in renewable energy, averaging $120 billion a year.

“We also need to be thinking about how we can bring private capital back into clean energy,” said Wong.

For more on Jetta’s presentation, visit TAEBC’s Facebook page.

Energy Mentor Network Spotlight: Ben Jordan

The Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council is continuing its series of feature stories highlighting the mentors behind the Energy Mentor Network program offering industry specific expertise.

The Energy Mentor Network‘s goal is to foster the growth of Tennessee advanced energy technologies and startups by connecting entrepreneurs with mentors. This gives Tennessee yet another advantage in grabbing its more than fair share of the $1.4 trillion global advanced energy market.

The Energy Mentor Network is run by the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council in partnership with Launch Tennessee.

In broad strokes, the Energy Mentor Network pairs mentors with promising new companies and entrepreneurs through a structured program involving panel presentations and mentoring sessions.

The purpose of the program is to develop quality startups. After completing the program, startups will have an investable pitch deck, a rock solid business model and a plan to establish more traction. These tools will position Tennessee’s entrepreneurs to raise capital, request other funds like SBIR grants, and scale their company.

This week TAEBC highlights Ben Jordan, Manufacturing Manager for Centrus Energy Corporation’s Technology and Manufacturing Center. He has 20 years of experience with manufacturing, engineering, operations management, research and design, and entrepreneurship.

He is responsible for $50M+ of precision manufacturing equipment including precision CNC machine tools as well as the associated inspection and certification equipment. He is also responsible for business development in this role.

He joined Centrus from Fleetguard (Cummins Subsidiary) where he served as the Manufacturing Supervisor. In this capacity, he was responsible for the financial performance, production targets, and quality performance of two high change-over assembly lines.

He earned a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He has obtained certification as a Project Management Professional and is a Derivative Classifier of Centrifuge information.

TAEBC is continuing to accept mentors for the Energy Mentor Program. If you are interested in this opportunity, please visit the “For Mentors” section of the Energy Mentor Network portion of TAEBC’s website.

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