The 1BOG Team
Executive Team
Dave is CEO and co-founder of One Block Off the Grid. Prior to founding One Block Off the Grid, Dave worked as a solar specialist, managing every aspect of solar installations. His knowledge of renewable energy markets, state specific incentive structures, energy policy, and hands on solar installation experience are key in the nationwide expansion of 1BOG.
Dave is also pioneering the model for getting solar on renters in San Francisco, by working with specialists in both tenant law and tax law. As a result, he hopes to be able to bring solar to renters across the country. Dave is a graduate in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois. He likes to play a game or two of poker, he dreams of making the final table in the World Series.
Brad Burton, VP of Product & Strategy
Brad is responsible for 1BOG’s rollout strategy and installer selection. After graduating from Stanford, Brad has been instrumental in growing 1BOG’s model nationwide, and continues to drive its expansion. He initiates and deploys 1BOG campaigns throughout the country, manages relationships with installers, and works to develop new products for the 1BOG community. When he’s not in the office, on his BlackBerry, or writing emails in airport terminals, he enjoys playing beach volleyball, rock climbing, and obsessing about professional European soccer. Email Brad
Steve Cooper, VP of Operations
Steve is responsible for 1BOG’s Sales and Operations Teams. Prior to joining One Block Off the Grid, Steve held both Sales and Operations roles for the past decade and a half, at high tech, high value, and high growth corporations. Steve is a member of several notable Bay Area and National Sales Organizations, including Bay Area Sales Executives, the Sales Ops Forum, and the Sales Management Association. He is excited to take his corporate experience and use it for a good cause.
Steve is familiar with the complicated buying process involved with installing solar panels, as he added them to his own home. He is proud to be part of a company that seeks to make the process easier and simpler. Steve has a B.A. in History from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Clayton Cornell, Online Strategy
Clayton is the former manager and founding team member of GO Media, the first green blog network, where he worked as general business manager, managing editor, and director of social media strategy before and after the network was acquired. Clayton gained most of his online media experience during his time as a professional blogger and lead writer for the transportation blog Gas 2.0 (now part of 1BOG), which most notably involved test-driving a Chevy Volt prototype and launching a short-lived national competition for electric vehicle deployment. Before he started blogging, Clayton worked in the Department of Toxicology at Oregon State, where he ran the training program for one of the EPA’s largest public toxicology information libraries. Clayton graduated from the University of Utah with honors, receiving a BS in Biology and a Minor in Chemistry.
Shannon Coulter, Director of Community
Shannon has the easiest job at 1BOG. In a nutshell, she gets to let people know that going solar is not only easy and affordable now, but with all the rebates and incentives being offered these days, it’s actually a bankable investment. To the task she brings a considerable range of marketing experience, including email, direct mail, community and word-of-mouth marketing with technology, media and educational organizations. In her spare time, she helps filmmakers license music. She still thinks email is the killer app.
Engineering Team
Grant Patterson, VP of Engineering
Grant joined 1BOG after 2 years at VMware, where he made computers run inside computers. Now he makes computers run projects that create positive social change. The latter is slightly easier to explain, and he likes that. Grant studied computer science at Stanford and came darn close to a music minor. When he isn’t wielding regular expressions like swords of glory, he sings, tinkers with electronics, jockeys discs, communes with Nature, and participates in Burning Man.
Aaron BrodeurAaron is a hot hunk of burning front end development and design-y love. He discovered Virgance and 1BOG after seeing the video from the first Carrotmob event and promptly fell in love.
He’s passionate about Fanta, Zombie films and civil liberties issues.
Tibet SpragueTibet was born and raised in hippie-ville western Massachusetts, studied Computer Science at Brown University and then spent the next 5 years in Brooklyn and Providence, RI trying to get two different software startups off the ground. While both ended up flaming out before achieving orbit, he feels supremely fortunate that their trajectory landed him in San Francisco and eventually at 1BOG. His previous work includes developing vehicle tracking and dispatching software at East Transit Technologies, and leading engineering efforts for Fusecal.com. No matter what the task, Tibet is incredibly excited to be working on projects he feels passionate about and looks forward to helping change the world for the better. In the meantime he spends his spare cycles exploring his new home in the bay by foot, bike and rollerskate, cooking up tasty vegetarian food, camping, hiking and looking for a bar with a good foosball table.
Operations Team
Kalvin WangKalvin grew up in the Bay Area, studied Computer Science at Stanford, and is interested in scalable social change, the Internet, and startups. Prior to 1BOG, Kalvin worked at Hewlett-Packard and at startups with 48, 4, and 2 people.
Online, you can find him on Hacker News, reading Slate, or hunting deals. IRL, Kalvin plays tennis, board games, and fixes things that aren’t broken. His favorite bloggers are Ezra Klein and Nate Silver; his favorite voices are Joel Stein and Michael Kinsley. He finds Yelp immensely useful and would like to thank his family and sister, who’s going off to a great college soon. Lastly, Kalvin greatly enjoys working at places that allow bios last seen in high school theater programs.
Luna BogdogLuna is a native of Louisiana but traveled west, graduating from San Francisco State with a degree in Dognitive Science. She is conducting a series of sleep studies at 1BOG headquarters. A typical day for Luna involves sleeping for approximately 6-8 hours at various locations around the office. While not conducting her research she enjoys long walks on the beach and trying to find the best barbecue in the city.
Public Relations
Rebecca Geller
Rebecca manages 1BOG’s communication programs. In 2007 Rebecca left the tech PR world to spend all of her time working exclusively with clean technology, sustainable living and socially responsible businesses and non-profit organizations. Rebecca has run media campaigns that raise awareness of issues such as drought and water supply management, resource conservation, energy-efficiency, living architecture, stormwater management and eco-tourism. Originally from London, Rebecca graduated from Leeds University with a degree in History & Philosophy of Science and has been living in San Francisco since 2003. Rebecca serves on the Advisory Committee for the Business Council on Climate Change (BC3).
Tania Ku
Tania joined the 1BOG PR team after spending a year teaching English in Japan. Tania has worked for various nonprofits and is now happily exploring how business and activism can come together to create effective, scalable solutions, à la 1BOG. Tania studied International Studies and Economics at the University of California, San Diego, where she co-founded student organizations to highlight worldwide ethnic conflict, human rights and refugee/displacement issues. A Bay Area native, Tania is also passionate about puppies, food and traveling. Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad!
Solar Advisors
Matt Bellehumeur, Solar Advisor Team Manager
Matt manages 1BOG’s Solar Advisor team. Prior to One Block Off the Grid, Matt worked with the inside sales team at SunRun introducing residential PPAs to California and beyond. He has been a recruiter for the medical device industry, a concert promoter and the editor of a student newspaper. A Milwaukee native, Matt has called San Francisco his home for over 4 years. An avid surfer, sailor and urban farmer, Matt is excited about helping you go solar and doing his part to help build a new sustainable economy.
Brad Smith, Relationship Manager
The former founder and CEO of a solar installation company, Brad brings a wealth of experience to 1BOG. An entrepreneur through-and-through, Brad also founded a lead-generation and strategic marketing practice that served Fortune 100 companies. Originally from the midwest, Brad earned a BS in Psychology from Michigan State University before moving to California and earning an MA in Organization Behavior, Claremont Graduate School.
Jamie BurkartPrior to joining the 1BOG team, Jamie spent time in politics, working for the City of San Francisco and for the U.S senate where he focused on environmental policy issues. Before entering the crazy world of California politics, Jamie spent time as a commercial fisherman throughout Alaska. He graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in Political Science. As a lover of the outdoors and a sustainable environment, Jamie is excited to help people start the green revolution!
Bill CummingsAs an avid outdoorsman, Bill has long appreciated the natural world and has had transformational moments there in endeavors ranging from a six-week solo backpacking trip in Colorado to extended canoe trips in Canada, Maine, New York and Vermont. With a strong belief that we must find sustainable and responsible ways to conduct ourselves, Bill jumped at the opportunity at 1BOG to spread solar. He is an Ironman tri-athlete, and eats more than anyone really should. When not in the office, he is likely to be found on his bicycle.
Lara has been thinking green her whole life since she was on the recycling team in 2nd grade coveting her own personal copy of 50 Simple Things Kids can do to Save the Earth. But as a recently unemployed history teacher she found her calling to no longer teach history, but be a part of it. With her growing interest in renewable energy she started at One Block Off the Grid in February 2009 after interning at Greenpeace and Greenhome.com and eventually began using her teaching skills to help 1BOG participants understand solar energy.
Cameron OctiganCameron moved to San Francisco about five years ago after finishing studying in Continental Philosophy and Russian Studies in Atlanta. He’s always been interested in and involved with non-profits and organizing, and is happy to apply this passion to disseminating solar information and assisting with group purchases. He’s very excited to help you move forward with solar, so give him a call!
Jonathan WeisblattJonathan is a community organizer reaching out directly to the people to spread solar energy knowledge into our communities, facilitating the way forward to a sustainable and just human presence on the planet. Educated in a variety of artistic mediums in several countries after a Literature and Language Arts degree from the University of Michigan, Jonathan is committed to the artful generation of new mediums to connect people with the heart of our common humanity to inspire and empower us all to collaborate to create thriving communities and ecosystems and to protect biodiversity as integrated extensions and reflections of our greatest selves. Jonathan invites all 1BOGers to join us for our office yoga breaks!
Current Super Interns
Keally Dewitt, Nick Isaacs, Charlie Lannin, Jeremy McCool, Brian Moss, Phil Patriarca, Arjuna Sathianathan, Stephen Yang
Board Members
Steve is the Chairman of the Board of 1BOG and is the acting Chairman of Serious Business. Steve also serves as the 2nd Vice Chair on the Board of Directors of the Presidio Graduate School. He is a successful serial entrepreneur who has been involved in building 6 other companies, resulting in over $3 billion in market value. Most recently, Steve co-founded Powerset, a natural language search engine company, which was acquired by Microsoft for $100 million dollars in 2008 and served on the Board of Directors at Jaxtr a voice over IP company which was acquired by Sabse. Before Powerset and Jaxtr, Steve also co-founded or created Promptu Mobil (private) and Loudfire (now Nokia), was an executive at Proxicom (now iCrossing) and AGS (now Statoil) and was the editor of “The Entrepreneur’s Workbook”.
Ravi Viswanathan, PhD
General Partner, NEA
Ravi joined NEA in February 2004 as a Principal, became a Partner in December 2004 and was named General Partner in 2009. He focuses on information technology investments with special emphasis in energy, India-related and growth equity investments. Ravi is on the board of Availink, Deeya Energy, ISGN Technologies, Jentro Technologies, Liquidia, Solar Junction, Suniva and ViXS and works closely with GlobalLogic, OANDA, and NEA’s energy portfolio companies. Prior investments include Tele Atlas. Prior to joining NEA, Ravi worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co. where he was co-head of the technology practice in their private equity group and led direct, fund, and secondary investments in the areas of information technology and life sciences. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Ravi worked for McKinsey & Company and advised clients in the software, communications, and pharmaceutical sectors on strategy, acquisitions and new business building. Previously, Ravi worked for Raychem Corporation in the Corporate Technology Division where he focused on research and product development in semiconductors, liquid crystals, and other materials systems. Ravi received a master’s degree in Business Administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara where he focused his research on materials science applications in molecular electronics, biomaterials, and nanotechnology. Prior to graduate school, Ravi received a BS in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
Krishna ‘Kittu’ Kolluri
General Partner, NEA
Kittu joined NEA in 2006 as a General Partner and focuses on information technology investments. Present NEA board memberships include OANDA, NEA-IndoUS Ventures, Novatium, Plusmo, RingCube Technologies, Teracent, Vuclip and WeatherBill. Prior NEA board memberships include PortAuthority (NASDAQ: WBSN) and SnapTell (acquired by Amazon.com). Formerly, Kittu was Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Security Products Group at Juniper Networks, a position he assumed following Juniper’s acquisition of NetScreen Technologies. At NetScreen, he was General Manager of Secure Access Products, a position he assumed following NetScreen’s acquisition of Neoteris, where he served as President and Chief Executive Officer. Kittu brings more than 18 years of experience at the leading edge of the technology industry. He co-founded Healtheon/WebMD, introducing online healthcare to the market. As Senior Vice President and General Manager of Provider Services, Kittu was responsible for product development, operations and business development. Before co-founding Healtheon/WebMD, Kittu worked at Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) managing high profile Interactive TV projects. Kittu holds a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, and a M.S. in Operations Research from the State University of New York, Buffalo.
Founding Team
Dan is a geek at heart with both business training and a strategic brain. He brings 10 years of business development and product strategy experience in high tech. After graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Cornell University he worked for GM as a Safety & Crashworthiness engineer. He completed an MBA at the University of Michigan and moved to San Francisco to lead a high profile $700M acquisition with AlliedSignal. He went on to found and raise the A round for GetToday, a consumer focused internet start up and has been involved in early stage high tech companies, helping scale from zero to tens of millions in revenue. In early 2007 Dan set up solar4sf.org, the precursor to 1BOG.org, and enjoys working with Virgance in an advisory role.
Sylvia is a native Parisian who has spent the past decade as a marketing executive in the life sciences industry where she managed marketing and product strategy for large pharmaceutical and biotech companies. She founded her first consulting firm in Paris while still in college. She later moved to New York City to work on a dozen top tier pharmaceutical launches. She followed an executive job to San Francisco and worked with emerging biotech companies before founding Aperio Life in 2003, an ad agency that catered to early stage companies. After the installation of a solar system in her house, Sylvia had an epiphany – there had to be a better way. She changed gears and decided to use her energies and training to create an organization she believes has a positive impact on our future quality of life. One Block Off the Grid was born.
Past Interns
Erica Etelson, Johnny Falla, Matthew Fidanque, Jessica Frizell, Will Harte, Yvonne Ho, Nida Hussain, Jess Lam, John Laxson, Misty Lefrandt, Marcia Lee, Maegan Lillis, Andrew Rowland, Simone Scarpino, Kimberly Schoemaker, Emily Wang, John Wang, Lilly Wilson
