CADER Board & Officers

Dr. David Rohy - Chairman

Dr. Rohy is an Adjunct Professor at San Diego State University. There he is the Co-Director of the California Energy Commission “Energy Innovation Small Grant
Program”. He has authored and contributed to numerous energy publications. In 1995 Dr. Rohy was appointed to the California Energy Commission by Governor Pete
Wilson. He served as Vice Chairman from 1997 to 2000. At the CEC he served as Presiding Member, Research and Development Committee and presided on power plant licensing cases. Prior to 1995, Dr. Rohy was employed by Solar Turbines, a subsidiary of Caterpillar Corporation. There Dr. Rohy developed technology strategies to achieve high efficiency and low emissions in combustion turbines. Dr. Rohy serves as the Chairman of the Communities Advancing Distributed Energy Resources (CADER). Dr. Rohy has served on numerous boards of directors and advisory boards. He received a Ph.D in Experimental Physics from Cornell University, Ithaca NY, and a B.A. in Physics from the University of California Santa Barbara.

Gerald Braun - Treasurer

Gerald Braunis Associate Director, UC Davis Energy Institute, Associate Director, California Renewable Energy Collaborative (CREC), and Director, California Integrated Renewable Energy Systems Program (Cal-IRES). He joined the University of California in 2007 to direct public interest energy research in renewable energy. His experience includes leadership positions across industries and government, i.e. ten years in energy equipment and project services industries, thirteen years with California investor owned utilities, eight years directing Federal and state renewable energy RD&D programs and five years advising and managing clean energy start-ups in the US and Europe. CREC was organized in 2009 as a framework for integrated effort among California's Biomass, Geothermal, Solar, and Wind Collaboratives in support of California's aggressive renewable energy deployment targets. CREC is funded by the California Energy Commission's (CEC) Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Program. Cal-IRES is focused on integrating principles and technologies necessary to cost-effectively deploy renewable energy systems at all levels of the California energy market, i.e. in combination with efficient end use and smart grid capabilities, i.e. in building energy, community energy and utility scale power applications.

Jeffrey Reed - Secretary

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.

Keith Davidson

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 Standford University and a Bachelors of Scient in mechanical engineering from the University of Missouri in Rolla.  

Larisa Dobriansky

Larisa Dobriansky is director of the Global Energy Network and senior advisor to energy companies, governments, financial firms and public policy organizations on environmental and energy matters relating to climate change, sustainable buildings and communities and clean energy technology commercialization, with a focus on developing new financing mechanisms; business models; and policies, incentives and institutional structures that can interact to spur technology innovation and project development, mobilize investment and scale up replicable infrastructure. Special areas of expertise are structuring risk-sharing public-private partnerships, integrated financing schemes and carbon strategies to accelerate the pace of distributed energy deployment and to underwrite energy efficient urban development, incorporating resource systems planning into community land-use development and urban design. Prior to this position, Ms. Dobriansky served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Energy Policy at the U.S. Department of Energy. There, she coordinated and provided strategic direction for Departmental activities to implement national energy policy objectives. As the lead for a number of clean energy initiatives, she focused on promoting deployment policies, incentives and financing mechanisms to enable strategic risk management and address barriers to the commercial adoption of clean energy technologies, including spearheading and obtaining legislative authorization for the Department’s first loan guarantee program for clean energy technology. She also has served in other senior legal positions in the executive and legislative branches of the Federal Government (U.S. House Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs; U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) and as senior counsel in the Washington office of Akin, Gump, Strauss & Feld. Ms. Dobriansky received her B.S.F.S. cum laude in international relations and economics and her J.D. and LLM in securities regulation and taxation from Georgetown University. She is a member of the District of Columbia and Virginia Bars

Doug Newman

Doug Newman serves as the Director for the National Energy Center for Sustainable Communities (NECSC) and as President of Sustainable Community Development Consultants, specializing in energy- and resource-efficient community development. He also serves as an advisor to the California Energy Commission's Technology Innovations for Builidings and Communities Program, and as an adjunct faculty researcher in the College of Engineering at San Diego State University.  Mr. Newman has 27 years of experience in the design and execution of environmental and energy technology deployment initiatives, and sustainable community planning projects. He has developed and delivered professional training programs and public lectures on sustainable community planning in Australia, China, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, and the United States. Previously, he managed the sustainable energy planning office at the Gas Technology Institute, served as a senior Federal program/projects manager and as a private consultant specializing in earth systems science exhibits for museums in Greece, Sweden and the United States.  His government posts included: Director of External Affairs for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - managing business, industry, legislative and intergovernmental affairs for the nation's Earth sciences agency; Senior Advisor and Special Projects Manager for three Administrators of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - responsible for environmental technology transfer initiatives and cooperative environmental quality partnerships; Staff Director of the Administrator's National Advisory Council on Environmental Technology and Policy; Member of the President's National Council on Public Works Improvement; Co-Creator and first Programs Director of the Congressionally-chartered National Environmental Education and Training Foundation; and Presidential Fellow at USEPA and the U.S. Department of Justice  Mr. Newman holds Masters Degrees in Urban and Regional Planning and in Public Policy and Administration from the University Wisconsin at Madison, and a BS in Urban Studies/Planning from the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis. 

David Sweet

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.