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Officers &
Committees
 he
Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES) is a nonprofit (501-c3)
organization that derives most of its funding and direction from its
members. CRES was founded in April 1996 by Ronal Larson and Paul
Notari, who organized the first board and membership meetings.
CRES members elect the board of
directors yearly and may attend meetings and give input to the board.
The paid staff serves part-time. Key projects of the organization are
organized by volunteer committees, including:
Annual Meeting and Party
Colorado Renewable Energy
Conference
Education
Finance
Fundraising and Membership
Liaison with Other Organizations
Media
Policy and Government Affairs
Tour of Solar Homes
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CRES Founders |
Ron Larson testifies
before the Colorado
Senate in favor of the Renewable
Energy
Standard bill,
Feb 24, 2004 |
Ronal
Larson, Ph.D.
. . .
is retired and mostly working in volunteer renewable energy areas,
often overseas. He is now the Vice-President of CRES' parent
group, the American Solar Energy Society, based in Boulder. He is
also coordinator of an international list called "stoves",
dedicated to improving simple low-cost stoves in developing
countries. Ron was active for many years as CRES Secretary and
Chair of the CRES Government Affairs Committee, which deals with
issues before the Colorado PUC and legislature. His outstanding
efforts at the PUC will continue throughout 2004. |
 Paul
Notari
. . .
is the President of SciTech Communication, Inc. He is currently
the editor of CRES NEWS, was active as our Treasurer for many
years, has worked on several CRES committees, and won the CRES
2001 Volunteer of the Year Award. Paul served as manager of
Technical Information Programs at NREL for 13 years, was a member
of the ASES Board for 12 years, and was twice elected that group's
chairperson. |
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Executive Director
 Sheila Townsend
. . .
has served as Executive Director of the Colorado Renewable
Energy Society since June 2001. She works for CRES about 20 hours
a week, and has organized our membership database, solicited
sponsorships for CREC and the Tour of Solar Buildings, and
generally plays a key role in keeping our organization moving
forward on a daily basis.
Sheila has a Masters of Arts degree in Political Science from
Colorado State University. She has a long history as a volunteer
organizer, working on numerous local and state political and
environmental campaigns. She served for 11 years on Golden's Earth
Day and Clear Creek Canyon Cleanup. |
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Membership
Director
Pat Grossman |
Communications
Director
 Phil
von Hake
. . . has
promoted CRES's monthly meetings since 2002, and their average
attendance has tripled since he started. As lead promoter for
the American Solar Energy Society's SOLAR 2006 Conference in
Denver, Phil helped to generate the most thorough and diverse
press coverage the conference has ever received.
Phil is a Communications Consultant for
Clean-Technology and Green-Future Issues. Through PvH
Communications, Phil strives to create "a message to help clear
the air," telling the story of those who work for a more
sustainable future, and educating others to make more
sustainable choices in their behavior and consumption. |
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CRES EXECUTIVE
COMMITTEE
CRES has Officers and Board
Members nominated by and voted for by the society's members. The officers and board members are listed below. The Board chooses candidates for officers; Board members are nominated and voted upon by CRES
members. The Vice-President serves as next year's president. |
2008
Officers
(Click link for
bio and photograph)
President -
Jeff Scott
Vice President -
Steve Sargent
Secretary -
Nate Blair
Treasurer - Richard Garb
CRES Past President -
Doug Seiter |
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2008 Board
Members at Large
(Click link for bio and
photograph) |
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Regional Representatives |
Northern CRES -
Rick Coen
Southeast CRES - Tim Oliver |
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 Jeff Scott, President
Jeff Scott is the founder of SolSource. He
traces his commitment to high-performance buildings back to his
seven years living in Japan during the 1990s. While there, Jeff
began his research into green building practices and was
impressed by the country's 'whole systems' construction methods.
Upon returning to the U.S., Jeff began linking his belief in
sustainable design to strong environmental values and business
skills and founded SolSource in 2003. Jeff holds two BAs
(Business and Computer Science) from Miami University of Ohio.
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Steve Sargent,
Vice President
 Dr.
Sargent has worked in the solar energy field since 1963, when he
became interested in it while a mechanical engineering student
at Arizona State University. After graduation from ASU, he
received a Fulbright fellowship to study solar energy in Israel,
after which he received his master’s and PhD degrees from the
University of Wisconsin, where he was affiliated with the UW
Solar Energy Laboratory. He was assistant professor of
mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland, where he
initiated a course on solar energy building applications for
engineering and architecture students.
He joined the solar energy program of the
Energy Research and Development Administration (now the
Department of Energy) when it was established in 1975, and has
been with DOE since then, working primarily as a renewable
energy program and project manager. He retired from DOE in 2004.
He has been an ASES/ISES member since 1963 and
has served on numerous divisions and committees, as well as the
ASES board. He was the first recipient of the ASES Special
Recognition Award (now the Vories Award) in 1993, and was named
a charter Society Fellow at the 2000 annual conference in
Madison. He was a member of the International Organizing
Committee for the 1991 ISES Congress in Denver, and the 2005
ISES Solar World Congress in Orlando, for which he served as
Water Program chair. He was a founding member of CRES and was
elected to the Board in December of 2006. |
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 Nate
Blair, CRES Secretary
Nate Blair has worked as a senior energy analyst
at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) since the
fall of 2002. Prior to this he worked in renewable energy for
ten years at several organizations, but primarily at the Solar
Energy Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Nate works
with economic and technical computer models of current and
future energy systems. In the past he has also worked with
building energy, PV systems, concentrating solar power, solar
hot water systems, and geothermal.
Blair has a Bachelor of Science in physics, a Masters of Science
in mechanical engineering and an MBA in technology management.
Nate also has been an active volunteer with CRES both with the
Tour of Solar Homes and the CRES annual dinner and party.
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Rich Garb, CRES Treasurer
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Doug
Seiter, Past President
. . . is currently
energy project specialist for the DOE’s Codes and Standards and
Building America programs. Before that that he initiated the Green
Building Program in Austin, Texas and was state coordinator for
Colorado's Built Green Program in the DOE Central Regional Office.
Doug has been active in planning our Colorado Renewable Energy
Conference for several years, serving as the program chair in
2001, conference committee chair in 2002, and was in charge of the
social and music elements of CREC 2003. He currently chairs the
CRES Buildings Committee and coordinates our Renewable Energy in
Buildings Awards.
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2008 Board Members at Large |
 Barbara Farhar
Dr. Farhar is adjunct professor at
the University of Colorado, and was a senior analyst at the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado. She has
been directing research on technology/society interactions and
diffusion of innovations for more than 25 years. A Senior Policy
Analyst, she gained national recognition for her work on the
human dimensions of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Dr.
Farhar has worked in energy since 1977 when she initially joined
the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI), now the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). She is an expert on public
perceptions and preferences on energy and environmental policy.
She has published on geothermal facility siting issues at
federal lands, including geothermal resource assessment and
policy analysis, and on Native American interest in geothermal
energy. She has recently completed a comparative market
assessment and utility analysis of the first production builder
development of high-performance homes in the United States. Dr.
Farhar has produced more than 240 publications and papers on the
relevance of behavioral analysis to energy policy, strategic
planning for federal research, public opinion about energy and
environmental policy, societal response to weather modification
technologies, energy efficiency R&D planning, and technology
transfer. She also publishes on the relationship between gender
and energy. She has been published in Annual Review of Energy
and the Environment, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Science.
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Thom Johnson
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 Walt
Kaesler
Walt Kaesler has been the proprietor of an
architectural practice for 22 years, the last 15 of which were
in Colorado. As a longtime CRES member, he has been chair of the
Buildings Committee for several years and was the originator of
the CRES Renewable Energy in Buildings Award project, which he
has managed for the last four years. The awards are presented
annually at the CRES Conference and have won CRES wide
recognition and respect from architects, builders and developers
throughout Colorado.
Before moving to Colorado, Kaesler was president of the
Dallas-Fort Worth Solar Energy Society and vice president of the
Texas Solar Energy Society. He was also the first chairman of
the Committee on the Environment for the Denver Chapter of the
American Institute of Architects.
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Seth Kassels
Seth Kassels is presently Director
of Technical Analysis for Econergy. In his present role, Seth
has leads/supports the technical and commercial due diligence of
renewable energy projects. Seth has also worked in Econergy’s
consulting division as an Energy Engineer. In this role, he
developed energy master plans for residential and commercial
developments, consulted in the review of potential Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) projects, conducted Green House Gas
(GHG) Inventories and reviewed proposed energy efficiency
improvements in commercial buildings. Before joining Econergy,
Seth spent four years leading the development of small scale
renewable energy projects in the Galapagos Islands and in
mainland Ecuador and Peru. Seth holds a Master of Science degree
from the Building Systems Program at the University of Colorado
and a B.A. degree in Environmental Physics from Colorado
College. While at CU Seth was a member of the 2005 CU Solar
Decathlon team. Seth was also the 2005 recipient of The ASES
John and Barbara Yellott Award, given yearly to a graduate
student concentrating on solar energy.
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 Jeff
Lyng
. . . is a Technical Consultant with Xcel Energy
in Denver. He earned his Masters of Science from the Building
Systems Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder and
undergraduate degree in Ecology from SUNY-ESF in Syracuse, NY.
His masters work focused on the implementation of solar energy
in the Colorado production home market.
Jeff served as the project manager for the 2005 University of
Colorado Solar Decathlon Team. He is the recipient of the 2006
John and Barbara Yellot Award given by ASES and the 2005 CoSEIA
Mark McCray Award.
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 Pamm McFadden
While working on her first
degree, Pamm worked on filming a pack of wolves for a television
film, creating her first awakening to environmental issues.
After completing that degree and teaching math, science, history
and p.e., she decided to pursue a degree in architecture with a
focus on renewable energy. Upon graduation she immediately began
designing energy efficient homes. They originally utilized the
techniques of earth sheltering and passive solar and that soon
grew to include straw bale, other sustainable materials, green
building techniques and superinsulation. In 1982, she became
involved with the American Solar Energy Society as a volunteer,
a board member, chair of the Passive Solar and Architecture
Division and vice chair of the Society. She also worked on the
national conferences as a volunteer and had several review
papers published by the organization. She also was Chair of both
the Boulder Solar Energy Society and the Denver Solar Energy
Association. Her work has been published in several magazines
and national television show did a segment on her buildings.
Her architecture career has taken her
all over the world to lecture, including Europe and Japan. She
moved to Lyon, France for more a year, to do research on
daylighting, publishing several papers, and moved to London in
the early 90’s to work on research on green building and
sustainability techniques.
She has been on the CRES Board for
several years and, since 2006, has chaired the Denver Tour of
Solar Homes. She also continues to practice architecture,
currently designing a net-zero passive solar home, a straw bale
addition to the CRES Building Award winning off-the-grid bed and
breakfast, and a superinsulated home south of Buena Vista. She
teaches a course, Passive Solar in Colorado, for CRES at their
annual conferences, and one on Paris through Colorado Free
University.
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Mona Newton
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 Charlie
Stevens
. . . works as an E-Star certified residential
energy rater for BuiltWright Inc. He served as the workshop
chair for CREC 2004 and is currently the CREC 2005 co-chair
scheduled for Ft. Collins. He has also volunteered with the
Solar Home Tour and is a member of the Sierra Club Energy
Committee where he helped create the Energy Hog Girl Scout patch
with the Denver Area Girl Scout Council. Mr. Stevens worked for
the USEPA in Atlanta Georgia as an emergency responder for oil
and hazardous material spills and served in the Peace Corps in
Kenya. |
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 Carol Tombari
Carol Tombari is the manager of stakeholder
Relations at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), where she works on local and
rural economic development. Prior to joining NREL’s Public
Relations office, she served in NREL’s Technology Applications
Center and directed NREL’s State and Local Initiatives Office.
Before that, Tombari was president of Mountain Energy
Consultation LLC, a small Colorado firm specializing in public
policy and programs related to energy efficiency, renewable
energy, and the environmental impacts of energy use. The firm’s
practice was both domestic and international. In this capacity,
Ms. Tombari led three delegations of American State Energy
Officials to the People’s Republic of China, to discuss public
policies that facilitate the development of renewable energy and
energy efficiency.
Tombari has specialized in energy and
environmental policy and programs for more than 25 years. She
directed the Texas energy efficiency and renewable energy
programs for a decade. She worked for two Texas governors,
served as an electric utility regulator, and was natural
resources advisor to the Texas Lieutenant Governor. She was a
founder of the National Association of State Energy Officials
and was appointed by DOE Secretary James Watkins to chair a
Congressional advisory committee on the subject of renewable
energy joint ventures. She was appointed to DOE’s State Energy
Advisory Board by DOE Secretary Bill Richardson.
Tombari holds a Masters in Public Affairs and
an undergraduate degree in geography. |
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Bolko von Roedern
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Regional Representatives |
 Rick
Coen, North - CRES
.
. . is a masters-level mechanical engineer working with Sun
Electric Systems, Inc., in Fort Collins designing and installing
Photovoltaic systems throughout Colorado. Coen also works with
NCRES, SolarBound, ASES, ImaginIt, and Four Winds Energy on his
way to following a life-long dream of helping create a society
whose viable energy sources consist of more than black muck dug
out of the ground and burned into the air. He is committed to
continuing to apply his skills in manufacturing, computers,
project management, and systems analysis to the development and
promotion of renewables in the United States. |
R. Timothy Oliver, South - CRES
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2003 CRES Board Retreat
The CRES Board
held a retreat at the Conifer home of Carol Tombari on October 26,
2003. Our group generated the Strategic Plan which will guide our
organization for the next few years and beyond.
Board member photos by Dave Rosenberg, Doug Balcomb, and
Dave Bowden |
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CRES History
CRES was founded on March 29, 1996 with Ron Larson and Paul
Notari generating the first membership solicitation. Our first
board meeting was April 8, and the Inaugural Meeting of
Membership was May 22, 1996. On June 6, 1996, we were
incorporated as a nonprofit organization in the State of
Colorado.
The Colorado Renewable Energy
Society is a state chapter of the American Solar Energy Society
(ASES) www.ases.org.
CRES is organized into regional
chapters, including a southeast chapter headquartered in
Colorado Springs, a southwest chapter headquartered in Durango,
and the Northern Colorado Renewable Energy Society (NCRES)
located in Fort Collins. |
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