Who We Are
Learn about IRESN's officers and advisory board members
Gerry Braun
Gerry Braun serves as IRESN's Chair. His knowledge of energy markets, electricity systems and clean energy supply technologies is rooted in his work over the years with leading firms and agencies such as Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Bechtel, Southern California Edison Company, BP Solar, Standard Solar, the US Department of Energy and the California Energy Commission. He organized and managed important and continuing US and California energy R&D programs and also held senior executive, marketing and business development roles in global and local solar companies. He is a member and recent chair of the Gas Technology Institute’s Public Interest Advisory Committee. He holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and graduate degrees in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Doug Newman
Secretary
Doug Newman has more than three decades of experience in the design and implementation of innovative energy efficiency, environmental quality management and sustainable development plans & programs for public and private organizations. He has developed and delivered related training programs for agencies, utilities and municipalities in Australia, China, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico and the United States and has authored numerous publications on resource-efficient development in the U.S. and abroad.
Doug is currently Managing Partner of SCD Consultants, providing technology planning and project management services to public agencies, nonprofit organizations, utilities and building owners seeking to maximize resource efficiency and resiliency (www.scdconsultants.org). Prior to this post, Doug served as Executive Director of the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, Director for the National Energy Center for Sustainable Communities (NECSC) at San Diego State University, Founder of and lead consultant for SCD Consultants, and Manager of Energy and Environmental Programs at the Gas Technology Institute.
Prior to these independent and private sector positions, Doug served as a federal policy analyst, program manager and staff administrator in Washington, D.C. His federal posts included: Special Programs Manager for three Administrators of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, responsible for the development and management of environmental technology transfer initiatives; Staff Director for the Administrator's national external advisory committee on environmental technology, education and training; Co-Creator and first Programs Director of the Congressionally-chartered National Environmental Education and Training Foundation; and Director of External Affairs for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), managing business, industry, legislative and intergovernmental affairs for the nation's principal Earth sciences agency.
Keith Davidson
Treasurer
Keith Davidson is President of DE Solutions, Inc., a consulting and engineering firm serving the distributed energy markets. Mr. Davidson was formerly President of Energy Nexus Group and a senior vice president at Onsite Energy Corp., where he had regional responsibility for energy services and oversaw the consulting practice. Prior to Onsite, Mr. Davidson was a Director at the Gas Research Institute (GRI), where he led programs directed at electric power generation, cogeneration, gas cooling and industrial process improvements. Mr. Davidson has more than 25 years of experience in energy and environmental technology development, project management, product commercialization, and market development. Mr. Davidson was past president of the American Cogeneration Association and is the recipient of several industry honors, including the Association of Energy Engineers’ Cogeneration Professional of the Year, and the American Gas Association’s (AGA) Industrial and Commercial Hall of Flame. He served as Chairman of the National Association of Energy Service Companies (NAESCO) DG Committee. Currently he is active in the California Clean DG Coalition (CCDC). Mr. Davidson holds a Masters of Science in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelors of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Missouri in Rolla.
Jeffrey Reed
Advisor – Utilities
Jeffrey Reed is the Director of Emerging Technology for Sempra Energy Utilities -- Southern California Gas Company and San Diego Gas and Electric. In that capacity, he leads development of policies and initiatives aimed at supporting the development and deployment of sustainable energy solutions and leads the natural gas RD&D, low-emission vehicle and environmental affairs programs. He has also lead numerous company initiatives related to renewable low-carbon energy technologies. Prior to joining the Sempra utilities, Mr. Reed was a senior strategy consultant and was an officer with ABB Power Generation in Switzerland. Mr. Reed holds a doctorate in engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and a masters degree in management from Stanford University.
Larisa Dobriansky
Advisor – Micro-grids
Larisa Dobriansky is Chief Business & Regulatory Innovations Officer at General MicroGrids. Drawing upon over 20 years of experience in the Energy, Environmental and Financial regulatory fields, she focuses on regulatory, institutional and financial changes that can leverage the capabilities of advanced microgrids to deliver integrated energy solutions to power systems and communities. She helps shape new financing mechanisms, market designs and utility regulatory reforms that can capture the value that an intelligent, dynamic microgrid system can provide to the Grid, Market and Communities, with a view to optimizing distributed resources, expanding “energy-sharing” parameters, and fostering transactive energy markets.
Ms. Dobriansky formerly served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Energy Policy at the U.S. Department of Energy, where she spearheaded and secured legislative authorization for the Department’s first loan guarantee program for clean energy technologies to address the “Valley of Death” and move technologies out of demonstration and into the marketplace. She has served in other senior legal positions in the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. Government and as senior counsel at Akin, Gump, Strauss and Feld. She received a BS degree in international relations and economics and her JD and LLM degrees at Georgetown University. She is a member of the District of Columbia and Virginia Bars.
David Berokoff
Advisor - Utilities
David Berokoff is an executive level business management consultant with over 36 years of professional experience in the energy industry, covering a wide range of disciplines including strategic business planning, financial and economic analysis, project management, and development of sustainable energy technologies/products. Over the past ten years, David acquired experience in the development and execution of corporate strategy, business plans, key emerging technologies and pilot demonstration projects. David is currently assisting corporate and small start-up clients with the development and commercialization of new and emerging energy technologies. David has extensive knowledge and expertise in various emerging technologies including biofuels and other renewables, energy efficiency and demand response products, natural gas vehicles and home refueling solutions, combined heat and power applications, distributed energy resources, oxy-fueled combustion, fuel cells and micro-grids.
David earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from California State University, Los Angeles, with post-graduate studies in energy systems analysis and economics at UCLA and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is a registered professional mechanical engineer in California. David has provided management guidance and served as an observer to the boards of a number of hi-tech startups. His professional associations include: a founding board member of the Gas Technology Institute’s Utilization Technology Development (GTI-UTD) organization; board advisor and technical writer for the Energy Innovations Small Grants (EISG) program funded by the California Energy Commission (CEC); and former Chair of the California Utility Research Council (CURC).
David Sweet
Advisor - CHP
David M. Sweet is the Executive Director of the World Alliance for Decentralized Energy (WADE). Prior to joining WADE, Mr. Sweet served as a Director of the United States Energy Association, the US arm of the World Energy Council, as Executive Director of the International LNG Alliance, Vice President of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, an attorney in private practice, and as an expert witness on financial, rate and permitting issues at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Mr. Sweet serves as president of the Natural Gas Roundtable, a member of the North American Energy Standards Board, a vice chairman of the ABA Section of Public Utility, Communications and Transportation Law and its gas committee, a member of the World Energy Council Committee on Cleaner Fossil Fuel Systems, and on the Board of Advisors of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. Mr. Sweet also serves as a U.S. representative to the International Gas Union and headed up the IGU study on regulation of the natural gas industry. He received his law degree with honors from George Washington University, an M.B.A. from the University of Maryland, and a B.S. degree magna cum laude also from the University of Maryland.
Stan Hazelroth
Advisor – Energy Finance
Stan Hazelroth has over 40 years’ experience as President/CEO various real estate related organizations, and creation of several successful entities providing products or services in California. He served from 2001 to 2013 as CEO of California’s largest financing authority, the California Infrastructure Bank, responsible for oversight of lending, issuing bonds and creating non-profit vehicles for financing billions of dollars of infrastructure and economic development projects for government, for-profit, and non-profit entities. He left with a portfolio of over $32B in loans and bonds financing California projects. Stan is a highly sought after speaker for events and conferences including World Infrastructure Summits in Barcelona, Paris and Amsterdam, Testimony before U. S. Senate and House Committees and State Legislatures, National Chamber of Commerce, Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Annual Fall Meeting and Urban Land Expo, California Financing Coordinating Committee and numerous Bond Buyer conferences.
Rob Hammon
Advisor – Building Energy Integration
Rob Hammon is the founder and president of BIRA Energy. He has more than 30 years’ experience in energy consulting, energy-efficient building design, and energy regulations. His extensive understanding and practice in energy efficiency program planning, implementation, marketing, and evaluation is based on deep understanding and experience integrating efficiency and renewable energy in the residential market. His project management experience ranges from large research and training projects to building and maintaining a successful consulting company and is complemented by experience in monitoring and evaluating energy conservation systems and programs. His communication skills have been honed in development and delivery of technical seminars as well as information-gathering interviews and participation in expert panels. His main current emphases are: Cost-Effective, Energy Efficient and Zero Net Energy Building Design; Integration of Renewable Energy systems in buildings; and
Sustainable Development.