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GO
No better place to show the benefits of zero emission vehicles than in front of 60,000 runners set for an urban 10K! This pace car for the 2002 Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta was the electric smart car prototype from our eMotion Mobility venture between motorsports legend Donald Panoz and Daimler.

A July 4th Atlanta tradition since 1970, some contestants run in costume (including colonial patriots and Lady Liberty). Our car was dubbed "Stars and Stripes." And yes, I had the privilege to drive on this day.

IMAGINE
The business model for an electric car-sharing service is different from a single car sale with trailing service revenue. It involves fractional use, scheduling options, duty cycles, variable rates, emission credits, cradle-to-cradle component management, and multiple use cases as diverse as they come.

We took a leadership team from Accenture's automotive group, the founder of Frog Design and his new chief executive, and teamed them with experts in transit, land use, and mobile emission reduction to build a 5-year business model that would stand the scrutiny of OEM finance experts in our US and German business teams.

​Here is an early design we created to convey how city and suburban centers could add recharging stations connecting shared car services to office and residential buildings and nearby transit stations.

BUILD
NanoLumens builds gorgeous immersive LED displays in custom shapes and sizes for customer settings around the globe. This unique circular unit is hung in the Telstra headquarters in Australia.

​The idea for driving light-emitting pixels on a flexible circuit board came from a Canadian university professor through a pitch contest in the US. Construction and application ideas were also gained from a talented advisory board we assembled and the fabric of a 60’s vintage dress my daughter found at an estate sale.  
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ACCELERATE
Young tech startups look to accelerators and incubators to build business models, find product-market fit and be seen by investors. Chattanooga used a newly-minted GigTank accelerator to do the same and pitch its 600-square-mile patch of Gigabit-ethernet. 

At the first demo day, over $160,000 in awards were given to student teams and startups recruited globally in a social media GeekHunt featured in Las Vegas at CES and in Austin at SXSW. Today GigTank is a staple within Chattanooga's vibrant and growing entrepreneurial economy, housed within the Company Lab in the heart of a vibrant downtown Innovation District.  
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INNOVATE
​California discovered that solar could deliver electricity in daylight when peak fossil fuel generation produced nitrogen oxides that convert to harmful smog in sunlight. This parabolic-trough system in the Mohave Desert feeds electricity to utilities in southern California. 

This solar power developer, its utility and other photovoltaics, wind, ocean thermal and biomass firms helped me form the Renewable Energy Institute to launch key tax and regulatory initiatives. Before that I worked in energy policy for Members of Congress and then coordinated a team of lobbyists and analysts on energy budget and tax issues at the Solar Lobby.

IMPACT

Sometimes you just need to show people. For a key anniversary of Earth Day, we produced a project for members of the House and Senate Environmental and Energy Study Conference that invited companies large and small to display promising environmental technologies at an exhibition on the Mall near the US Capitol.

​This wind turbine was installed by a company building California windfarms that became a precursor to GE Wind. Over 80 firms, government agencies and non-profit organizations brought tangible exhibits to show their plans for the future.

POLITIC

The chair of a global services firm once defined public affairs as the nexus of PR, lobbying, crisis communications, advertising and marketing.  If you've never worked in Washington, this may seem a bit much. But when your cause or business is under public fire, you need every tool available.

I've helped organize hearings in Washington, state capitols and congressional districts. I've also felt the heat of that questioning while testifying myself before House and Senate committees or briefing governors, house speakers and senate presidents from multiple states. More importantly, I have helped others do well in this setting by sharing my experience in the chair. Here I am (center) in a panel assembled by The App Association for the House Small Business Committee to brief a packed room of Congressional staff on the role of software apps and broadband in innovation for the rural economy.  
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