The One Block Off the Grid Team
Executive Team
Dave is the CEO of One Block Off the Grid, which he founded in 2008. Armed with a mission to massively accelerate the adoption of residential solar, Dave originated a hyper-efficient, pro-consumer approach that’s changing the way homeowners purchase solar energy. In 2011, Dave crafted strategic partnerships aimed at helping homeowners benefit from commercial-scale solar bulk purchasing. He was also profiled as a pioneer in the book What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption and won the Heart of Green Award for “best new innovation.” Dave grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, has a degree in electrical engineering, and is an avid poker player.
Brad Burton, VP of Product & Strategy
Brad is responsible for One Block Off the Grid’s rollout strategy and installer selection. After graduating from Stanford, Brad has been instrumental in growing the model nationwide, and continues to drive its expansion. He initiates and deploys One Block Off the Grid campaigns throughout the country, manages relationships with installers, and works to develop new products for the One Block Off the Grid 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.
Steve Cooper, VP of Operations
Steve is responsible for One Block Off The Grid’s operations. Prior to joining the company, Steve held director roles in sales, operations, and finance at high tech, high value, and high growth corporations. In addition to being a CRM expert, he lends his talents across all areas of the company to streamline workflows and grow teams strategically. Now, he is excited to take his corporate experience and use it for a good cause. Steve is also the proud owner of a solar powered home and deeply understands the need for a company that will make the process easier and simpler. When Steve’s not thinking about Solar, you can usually find him up in Napa at his favorite vineyards.
Paul Stephan, VP of Sales
Prior to joining One Block Off the Grid, Stephan was director of solar sales at Paramount Energy Solutions (the solar division of Paramount Equity) where he spearheaded initiatives that contributed to exponential growth of the division’s sales revenue. He brings more than 15 years of senior sales experience to the position, including roles at Providian Financial, Citigroup, and Countrywide Home Loans. Paul’s enthusiasm for helping consumers save money is matched only by his passion for making a positive impact to the environment. Paul provides primary sales leadership at One Block Off the Grid, where he’s able to combine these passions with the nation’s largest provider of deals on solar.
Shannon Coulter, VP of Marketing
Shannon enjoys the challenge of bringing real solar markets to the 40 out of 50 U.S. states that don’t yet have them. To the task she brings a range of marketing expertise, including senior marketing roles at the BabyCenter.com and at Lyris Technologies where she spearheaded the ISP Deliverability Report Card a report that directly prompted several ISPs — including Google — to improve their spam filtering practices in favor of permission-based marketers. Shannon was also a part of the Intuit team that rolled out Open Financial Exchange (OFX) protocol to over 2,700 financial institutions. She has special expertise in email marketing and a fascination with how online strategies can be used to decrease traditionally long sales cycles. In her spare time, she helps filmmakers license music. She still thinks email is the killer app.
Tibet Sprague, VP of Engineering
Tibet is a lifelong software developer & entrepreneur, having turned a computer science degree from Brown University into his first company upon graduation. He has lead the engineering efforts at three startups, tackling nigh-impossible problems like vehicle dispatching and calendar management. Since 2010 he has found a happy home at One Block Off the Grid where he can ride his bike to work every day while listening to Radiolab or maybe dubstep, rock some code, and see his work directly impact the adoption of renewable energy nationwide. He is also strangely tall.
Wade Hobb, Director of Customer Acquisition
Wade is geekishly passionate about improving conversion rates and optimizing consumer flow. He’s all about highly profitable lead generation offers that monetize websites to their fullest. At LeadClick Media for six years, Wade oversaw products that generated more than 15,000 sales leads a day and over $15 million a year across seven verticals. He stepped up his business strategy game as a co-founder of Zynga-funded DoubleDing, which developed a managed offer wall for social application developers. Over the past year Wade has transitioned from targeting online gamers to targeting people who actually understand the value of the sun, which makes him happy.
