Zahren Fund's Technical Advisory Board

Cleaner Footprint. Better Planet.

Greg Gartner

Greg is currently the Senior Director for “storm hardening at Florida Power & Light (a regulated subsidiary of NextEra Energy: NYSE symbol “NEE”)”.  He oversees a 2,000-person staff and an annual budget of over $1 Billion, his team is ensuring that the distribution system can meet extreme winds loads that happen during hurricanes.  From 2011-2017 he was the Senior Director for NextEra Energy Resource’s Power Delivery Operations. In this position, his team managed the inter-connection operations of over 150 non-regulated generation assets (over 20,000 megawatts of capacity of solar, wind and battery storage). NextEra Energy is the largest global generator of renewable energy.  Prior to his roles at NextEra Energy, he owned several entrepreneur businesses in manufacturing and distribution. He started his career with the General Electric company where he led several domestic US and global manufacturing and product development organizations. He holds an MBA from University of Hartford and an BSME degree from Purdue University.

Don Phelan

Providing a wide range of consulting and advisory services for debt, equity and syndication. Don retired as a Managing Director at Barings (a MassMutual affiliate) in December 2018 where he managed the Affordable Housing operations of MassMutual, a position he held since 2001. Mr. Phelan was responsible for the origination of new debt and equity affordable housing investments and the creation and external distribution of affordable housing products.

Mike Jacobs

Leading the Union of Concerned Scientist’s work on electricity markets and regulatory reform. He develops proposals in an effort to shape federal, regional and state electricity markets, regulation and policies to encourage the expansion of renewable energy resources and the reduction of coal-fired generation. Prior to coming to UCS, Mr. Jacobs worked as the markets and policy director at several renewable energy and energy storage companies and at the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). In these positions, he developed strategies for integrating wind into the electrical grid using battery storage, expanding the use of existing transmission for renewable energy, and building merchant and dedicated transmission lines.

Michael Bergey

A co-founder of Bergey Windpower Co. in 1977 and its’ CEO, Mike is a mechanical engineer and an internationally recognized expert in the fields of small wind systems, distributed generation, and green telecom.  Bergey Windpower is a leading worldwide manufacturer of small wind turbines, with over 10,000 installations covering all 50 U.S. States and over 120 countries. Mike has twice served as president of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and served on the AWEA Board of Directors for 27 years. In 1994 he was recognized as the “Wind Industry Man of the Year” by AWEA.  He is currently in his fifth term as president of the Distributed Wind Energy Association (DWEA), which represents the U.S. small wind industry.

Jay Corgiat, Ph.D.

Jay has over 15 years of experience in the green energy business in Illinois, developing, owning, and operating 6.5 MW of landfill gas to energy facilities. He is the founder of Central Road Energy, LLC (CRE), a business to business entity that holds and administers Renewable Energy Credit contracts for projects developed and operated under the ILSfA’s Low-Income Distributed Generation, Non-Profit and Public Facilities, and Low-Income Community Solar sub-programs.  CRE works with developers, EPCs, and investors to ensure that their projects are compliant with the requirements of the ILSfA program

Michael Carolan

Michael has been working in the renewable energy and environmental field for over 50 years. He has primarily developed, constructed and operated landfill gas to energy (LFGE) facilities. He was Executive Vice President and COO of a regional waste company and managed the day-to-day operations for waste collection, landfills, waste water treatment facility and hazardous waste disposal. Previously, he was the Manager for Dow Chemical’s Agro-Products in Brazil and Latin America. Michael has also consulted through Carolan Associates, LLC on wood waste to energy for a utility and biomass gasification projects. He has previously served as President and a Director of Zahren Alternative Power and has worked for over 30 years on the Landfill Gas Committee of SWANA. He was the United States liaison for the 1988 UK-US LFG Conference in Chester, England. Michael has written and presented numerous papers and publications about LFGE.