Smart CCA

Tyler Masters

Tyler Masters is a Program Manager at the Western Riverside Council of Governments (WRCOG), a joint powers authority consisting of 17 cities, the County of Riverside, the Eastern and Western Municipal Water Districts, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, and the Riverside County Superintendent of Schools. He received a baccalaureate in Urban & Regional Planning from the California Polytechnic University, Pomona, and a Master of Public Administration from California Baptist University. One of Tyler’s main responsibilities includes the development, and operations, of WRCOG’s Western Riverside Energy Partnership (WREP) in conjunction with local jurisdictions, Southern California Edison and the Southern California Gas Company. WREP is designed to assist local governments set an example for their communities to increase energy efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase renewable energy usage, and improve air quality by promoting energy efficiency projects in municipal facilities and to the communities in Western Riverside County. Tyler is also working with local jurisdictions on the Regional Streetlight Program, a program developed to assist WRCOG member jurisdictions reduce their utility costs and electricity usage, by acquiring and retrofitting over 48,000 streetlights to Light Emitting Diode (LED) streetlights.

Clay A. Sandidge

Clay A. Sandidge is a founding principal at Muni-Fed Energy. He has 30 years of experience in the renewable energy development, water/waste water, engineering, environmental, and real estate transaction and development business segments. Throughout his career he has focused on providing integrated solutions to private industry, ports, utilities, developers, manufacturers, and municipal, state, local and federal government clients.

He has engaged in various projects in the alternative energy arena working with new technology development and deployment including solar, micro wind turbines, micro turbines, thermal energy storage, energy efficiencies in lighting, as well as green building resource and energy resource management as well as technology deployment for environmental remediation and air quality reductions. Clay has incorporated the latest technology as well as practical and economical solutions into projects he is working with and provided solutions for numerous clients such as Ports, Municipalities and Private Industry.

Clay lives in Mission Viejo with his wife Donna and their three children: Slate, Eve and Wilson. He enjoys golf, athletic activities with family and traveling.

Gary Saleba

Gary Saleba has been a principal of EES Consulting since 1978 and is currently EES’s President/CEO. His areas of expertise include overall quality control for all of EES Consulting’s finance and engineering projects. Mr. Saleba has extensive experience in the areas of utility rates and financial planning, resource acquisition, marketing and consumer research, forecasting, integrated resource planning, cost-benefit analyses and overall strategic planning.

Mr. Saleba has also served on numerous energy and natural resource-related trade associations. He has taught numerous technical seminars for the American Public Power Association, served as Chairman of American Water Works Association’s Financial Management Committee and Management Division, and served two terms on the Board of Directors for the Northwest Public Power Association.

Suzanne Casazza

Suzanne is an analyst in the Energy Division of the California Public Utilities Commission. She works on CCA issues, including the CCA bond proceeding and the PCIA Order Instituting Rulemaking. Before joining the Commission, Suzanne served as a Policy and Law Fellow for Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez. Suzanne is a licensed attorney and received her J.D. from UC Hastings College of the Law, where she focused on energy and environmental law.

Drake Welch

Drake Welch is Vice President of Customer Care of Calpine Energy Solutions, LLC, a top supplier of energy and risk management services to a diverse mix of Direct Access customers across the U.S. Mr. Welch oversees the Information Technology, Customer Metering & Billing, Wholesale Market Settlements teams that deliver best-in-class operational, data management and customer care services to these customers. Furthermore, Mr. Welch founded and heads Calpine Solutions’ Community Choice Aggregation Services group. Calpine Solutions provides critical Data Management and Call Center services to all eight operating California CCAs, having continuously developed CCA-specific expertise and performance standards since 2009. Mr. Welch has over 20 years of experience managing the ever-increasing operational complexities of the energy business. Mr. Welch holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Matthew Skolnik

Matt Skolnik began working on LACCE in 2015 as the sustainability policy advisor to former LA County Supervisor Don Knabe. Upon Supervisor Knabe’s retirement in December 2016, Matt began working on LACCE on staff side within the County’s Chief Sustainability Office. He is currently managing the implementation of LACCE under the direction of its Executive Director, Bill Carnahan.

Kris Murray

Anaheim City Council Member Kris Murray was first elected in November 2010.

Council member Murray chairs the Orange County Council of Governments Board of Directors, and Co-chairs the Southern California Water Committee Water Energy Task Force. During her tenure, Murray has represented Anaheim as a board member of the Association of California Cities–Orange County (ACC-OC), League of California Cities, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), and Transportation Corridor Agencies. Prior to her service on the city council, Murray was a member of the Anaheim Public Utilities Commission, serving as co-chair of the board.

Council Member Murray has led economic development initiatives in Anaheim and regionally. She co-chairs the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce Economic Consortium and chairs the annual Anaheim/OC Job Fair. Murray also championed development of the county’s Platinum LEED-certified transit center, the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center, known as ARTIC.

Council Member Murray has more than 25 years of executive management experience, serving public agencies across Southern California. Currently, she is Senior Vice President for Willdan, a national energy management and municipal services firm. Prior to joining Willdan in 2010, she served in a dual role as an Executive Director for both Orange County Transportation Authority and OCCOG, working with all 34 cities in Orange County to conduct the county’s first and only subregional Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS), following passage of SB 375.

Murray holds a bachelor’s in political science from California State University, Long Beach, and a master’s certificate in transportation management from the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University.

Vitaly A. Lee

Vitaly has over 20 years of experience in both domestic and international energy marketplace with a track record of accomplishments in resolving complex commercial, regulatory, financial, tax and other business issues. He currently serves as the Executive Vice President of Development at BayWa r.e. Solar Projects where he oversees the development of BayWa r.e.’s solar project portfolio in the US and Mexico. He serves as Vice-Chair on the Board of SustainOC.

Prior to this role, Vitaly led asset management for a .5 GW geothermal & solar portfolio at Terra-Gen, a private equity owned IPP, one of the most recognized renewable developers in the US. As a key member of the senior management team, he was charged with maximizing the commercial value of the assets by proactively managing key relationships with senior utility executives. In addition, he spearheaded power marketing effort with C&I customers. Prior to Terra-Gen, Vitaly had held various leadership positions at AES Corporation, a Fortune 200 global IPP company, where he was actively involved and played a frontline role in business development and M&A, strategic planning and later running asset management for a 4.4 GW gas-fired portfolio in Southern California. Vitaly was instrumental in establishing the regulatory framework for AES in California post energy crisis of 2000-2001. Vitaly has negotiated multiple cross-border transactions and has traveled to 20+ countries.

Vitaly started his career as a tax associate at Arthur Andersen where he advised his clients on complicated cross-jurisdictional tax issues and conducted tax due diligence for prospective acquisition targets. Vitaly holds an MBA from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business as well as Master’s in Public Administration from the University of Delaware where he focused on Public Finance and Taxation.

Ryan Baron

Ryan Baron is energy and environmental counsel with the law firm of Best Best & Krieger LLP, a California and Washington DC based firm. Ryan offers strategic counsel on regulatory and transactional matters involving energy and gas, community choice aggregation, water, air, and other infrastructure matters. He appears before a number of federal and state regulatory agencies and advises on project and program development issues. He is a board member of Sustain OC, chair of a State Bar executive committee, and co-chair of a policy committee for a statewide water organization.

Ranbir Sekhon

Ranbir Sekhon is currently Director of the Portfolio Planning & Analysis department within the Energy Procurement & Management organization of Southern California Edison (SCE). He joined SCE as Manager of Portfolio Planning & Management in August 2007 responsible for monthly risk and resource adequacy reporting to the CPUC in addition to analytical model development. He attained his present position, responsible for managing all Portfolio planning activities including valuation processes related to conventional procurement, renewable and alternative procurement, portfolio position reporting, energy forecasting and developing analytical models to support SCEs hedging programs and market integration in Dec 2014. Prior to joining SCE Ranbir worked as a Management Consultant for PA Consulting Group and was responsible for managing teams of consultants on various consulting projects. Six of his nine years with PA were spent working with global energy sector clients on engagements ranging from Energy Transaction and Risk Management (ETRM) systems implementation to strategic planning and business process & quantitative model development. Mr Sekhon has testified before the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on several occasions on issues related to power procurement and cost responsibility. Mr Sekhon earned a Bachelors of Science Degree in Mathematics and Computing with First Class Honors from Queen Mary College, University of London.

Greg Miller

Greg Miller serves as Ice Energy’s Executive Vice President of Market Development and Sales.
Greg started with Ice Energy in 2004, leading project development with utilities, commercial, and industrial customers. Greg and his team have pioneered the development of megawatt scale distributed energy storage projects, starting in California but now across the country and around the world.
Prior to joining Ice Energy, Greg served as the Vice President of Sales for Encorp, Inc. Encorp is a technology company that developed and trade marked the Virtual Power Plant® concept networking customer owned generation assets to avoid peak energy consumption of utilities and end customers. During Greg’s tenure he created new business opportunities, established strategic partnerships that led to technology integration and new product offerings, and opened sales offices hiring staff domestically and in Mexico that led to Encorp tripling sales revenues annually four consecutive years. Greg’s business development and sales results supported Encorp raising $45 million in venture capital during his tenure.
Greg began working at the early age of 14 accepting an 8-year summer recruit program with Woodward Governor. After completing the recruit program and securing a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering at DeVry University, Greg accepted employee with Woodward serving in many positions including field engineer, test engineer, project management, technical sales, and product development. Greg credits his 19 years period at Woodward building foundation and his passion for power generation systems, propulsion, compressed natural gas vehicular control, local and remote automation and communications and is proud of his emphasis on business ethics. Greg’s initial positions inspired him to follow a career that has combined environmental consciousness with energy technologies that contribute to utility and consumer energy usage optimization.

Eric Hulin

Eric is responsible for the strategic planning of renewable energy products and services at 3 Phases Renewables. During his time at 3 Phases he has sold over 3,500 GWh of renewable electricity to commercial, industrial, and municipal customers. For the past decade, Eric has worked in energy related business development and sales roles and has been instrumental in providing unique clean energy solutions, managing key accounts and building financial models. Prior to joining 3 Phases Renewables, Eric worked with a fuel cell company, a solar company, and an electric vehicle company. Eric started his career in engineering where he gained technical and analytical experience as a Mechanical Engineer and a Process Engineer. Eric holds an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Santa Clara University.