Finalists Announcement

Showcase of Solutions Finalists Announcement Event

Pictures from the Event

Speakers:

Hon. Chuck Reed

Mayor, San Jose

Chuck Reed was elected as the 64th Mayor of San José in 2006, after serving six years on the City Council as an independent voice for fiscal responsibility and reform.

Since taking office, Mayor Reed has been committed to improving the quality of life in the city, boosting the public’s trust in local government, and eliminating the City’s structural budget deficit. His Reed Reforms have required greater disclosure from elected officials, toughened restrictions on lobbyists and increased the role of citizens in San José government. In 2007, he launched his Green Vision, an ambitious 10-point plan to invigorate the economy and improve the environment over the next 15 years.

Mayor Reed was re-elected in June 2010 with a landslide 77% of the vote. His top priorities during his second term are to restore police services after a decade of budget cuts, bring new jobs to San José, and implement much-needed fiscal reforms to solve the City’s enduring budget problems. In 2012, he successfully pushed for a comprehensive set of pension reforms (approved by nearly 70% of San Jose voters) that will protect the long-term health of the City's retirement plans and generate the savings necessary to begin restoring core services to the community.

Mayor Reed was born and raised in the small farming town of Garden City, Kansas, where he lived in a public housing project and held jobs throughout his childhood sweeping floors, working in the fields and operating a bulldozer. He left Kansas to attend the U.S. Air Force Academy and served in Thailand during the Vietnam War. He also received a Master’s Degree in Public Affairs from Princeton University and graduated from Stanford Law School. After passing the bar, he worked as an attorney in San José handling environmental, employment, land use and real estate law, as well as commercial litigation.

Daniel Rasky

Director & Co-Founder, Space Portal at NASA Ames

Dr. Rasky is an internationally recognized expert on advanced entry systems and thermal protection materials. He has developed his expertise working five years for the U.S. Air Force and more than 20 years for NASA. In the 1990’s, he and his research colleagues at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., invented a heat-shield material called Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) that has subsequently been used on several NASA as well as private industry spacecraft. For this achievement, Rasky received the NASA Inventor of the Year Award for 2007 – the first ever for NASA Ames.

In 2009, Rasky completed a one-year Interagency Personnel Assignment (IPA) with the Space Grant Education and Enterprise Institute, Inc., San Diego, Calif., where he served as a senior research Fellow supporting a number of emerging space companies and other organizations. One of these companies was Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Hawthorne, Calif., also known as SpaceX. Rasky spent considerable time at SpaceX providing expert consultation about the design and development of the heat-shield for their Dragon spacecraft. As a result, SpaceX chose PICA as the heat shield material for the spacecraft. On Dec. 8, 2010, the Falcon-9 rocket carried the Dragon capsule with its SpaceX fabricated PICA-X heat shield into space. It survived the launch and re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere; consequently, the mission was considered an enormous success.

In addition to the SpaceX Dragon capsule, Rasky has made significant contributions to flight hardware used on eight NASA missions, including the NASA Stardust comet sample return mission. The Stardust return capsule used a PICA heat-shield that enabled the mission, and was the fastest entry ever by a man-made object at Earth. It is now on display as part of the “Milestones of Flight” exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. PICA also is being used for the primary heatshield for the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) lander mission.

Today, Rasky is the director and co-founder of the Space Portal at the NASA Research Park, Moffett Field, Calif. The Space Portal has a mission to “be a friendly front door for emerging and non-traditional space companies.” Through their initiatives and collaborations the Space Portal has had a significant role in the establishment of several notable and successful NASA programs, including the Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS) program, the Innovative Lunar Demonstration Data (ILDD) program, and the Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) program.

Rasky also is the recipient of the Senior Professional Meritorious Presidential Rank Award, the NASA Exceptional Achievement Award, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, 12 NASA Group Awards, and eight Space Act Awards. He has six patents, 64 publications, and is an associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and a senior member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Nancy E. Pfund

Managing Partner, DBL Investors

Nancy E. Pfund is Founder and Managing Partner of DBL Investors, a venture capital firm located in San Francisco, whose goal is to combine top-tier financial returns with meaningful social, economic and environmental returns in the regions in which it invests.  As a leading player in the growing field of “impact investing”, DBL has helped to reveal the power of venture capital to promote social change and environmental improvement, and Nancy writes and speaks frequently on this topic. 

Ms. Pfund currently sponsors or sits on the board of directors of several companies, including; SolarCity (NASDAQ: SCTY), Solaria, BrightSource Energy, Primus Power, Eco.logic Brands, EcoScraps, OPx Biotechnologies, Powergenix and, prior to their public offerings, Tesla Motors and Pandora Media.  Originally a regional venture capital group within JPMorgan, DBL Investors spun out as an independent firm in January 2008.  Ms. Pfund joined JPMorgan (then Hambrecht & Quist) in 1984 first as a securities analyst and then as a Venture Capital Partner and Managing Director. Ms. Pfund is also a member of the board of directors of the California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF); Advisor to the CalCEF Angel Fund; member of the Advisory Board of the UC Davis Center for Energy Efficiency; member of the Advisory Council of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University; member of the California STEM Learning Network (CSLNet) board of directors; member of the Advisory Council of the Milken Institute’s Center for a Sustainable Energy Future; a C3E Ambassador to the U.S. Clean Energy Education and Empowerment Program, led by the U.S. Department of Energy in partnership with the MIT Energy Initiative; and is a founding officer and director of ABC2, a foundation aimed at accelerating a cure for brain cancer. Ms. Pfund is the author, along with Benjamin Healey of the widely cited report on the history of U.S. energy subsidies entitled, “What Would Jefferson Do? The Historical Role of Federal Subsidies in Shaping America’s Energy Subsidies” and co-authored with Michael Lazar, “Red, White & Green: The True Colors of America’s Clean Tech Jobs”.  

Ms. Pfund received her BA and MA in anthropology from Stanford University, and her MBA from the Yale School of Management.  

Josh Henretig

Director, Environmental Sustainability, Microsoft 

Josh Henretig is the Director of Environmental Sustainability for Microsoft and is responsible for helping define, implement and communicate the global environmental strategy for the company. Josh has found success translating corporate insights and experiences with sustainability into scalable business practices that result in reducing the company’s environmental footprint and showcasing the role technology plays in enabling people and organizations around the world reduce their impact on the environment. Josh has spent a significant amount of time working with Microsoft business groups and international subsidiaries to embed environmental strategies and policies into their core business. 

Josh has been with Microsoft for over 10 years and was recently named a Fellow at the Aspen Institute. Josh has previously held positions in Sales, Business Strategy and Management, and Environmental Sustainability. Prior to Microsoft, Josh worked at Onyx Software where he held a variety of sales, marketing and management positions. 

Questions? Contact Program Director, Martina Frndova
650-318-3638 ext. 274,
mfrndova (at) sustainablesv.org

Tweet the WEST Summit/Showcase #WEST2013.