ECO-GRID - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chairman, CEEP
- Chairman, CEEP INC and Senior Advisor, Investment Banking, Spencer Clarke LLC
Mr. Rubenstein, a Manhattan-based investment banker specializing in Clean Technologies, is Chairman of CEEP, an organization dedicated to the promotion of clean technologies in New York, the U.S. and internationally. The organization leads educational workshops, investment seminars and other conferences that relate to the furthering of the energy and environmental industry. The organization also promotes the commercialization of energy and environmental technologies. CEEP created the NAAP program, which has successfully introduced over 20 Finnish companies to the U.S. renewable-energy market and specific market-entry opportunities.
Maria Miller has more than twenty years of Manhattan-based experience in Mass Communications (including, among others, successful media placement, fundraising, branding, market re-positionings and copywriting) for the likes of NAMSB, ENK International, Business Journals and ATELIER, not to mention a host of individual designers and non-profit ventures, some of which remain clients today. Maria is also a published author in the trade segments of fashion and fine art; is well-versed in international business practices. She joined Eco-Grid as Executive Director in 2004, at the invitation of the founder.
Job Titles:
- Project Manager
- Project Manager, Eco - Grid, since 2006
Matt has diverse professional and academic experience in creating innovative solutions utilizing the framework of sustainable development. His interest in energy markets led him to work with, and be funded by, a Swedish district heating-and-energy utility for his master's thesis at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE) at Lund University, Sweden. At the Conservancy of SW Florida, Matt applied his training to a team that coordinated stakeholders in local government, the public and the tourism industry, in advocating municipal and regional policy. These combined efforts led to a successful referendum campaign to conserve environmentally-sensitive lands.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Principal
- Eco - Grid, Principal Advisor
Morris A. Pierce, PhD, is energy manager and Adjunct Assistant Professor of History at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. He is a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point and has thirty years of experience as a facilities and energy manager for large institutions.
While at the University of Northern Colorado he assisted the development of a cogeneration project that provided free heat to the campus in exchange for a land lease for the plant. He has been with the University of Rochester since 1988, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on the History of Cogeneration and District Heating, while managing the University's energy needs. The University recently installed a 25 MW natural gas-fired combined heat-and- power plant and a low-temperature, hot-water district-heating system that will cogenerate about half of the University's annual electric requirements, without using any more fuel than it previously used just to generate heating and cooling for the campus. This new system includes extensive metering and instrumentation to facilitate design of similar systems for other campuses and communities.
Dr. Pierce is currently working to further reduce the University's carbon footprint by utilizing wood residues and energy crops as a fuel source, and is also working with several communities in New York to develop new biomass district energy systems, including one for the City of Buffalo. He has written numerous articles on district energy and local heat supply planning, as well as the history of these subjects, and also teaches courses on the History of Technology, Environment, and Energy at the University.
Dr. Pierce is active in the International District-Heating Association and also works closely for other associations including Euroheat and Power in Brussels, the Combined Heat and Power Association in London, and the Danish Board of District Heating.
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Founder, Eco - Grid
Richard Cohen owns and operates Voice Log, a Manhattan-based voice-recording technologies company catering to Fortune 500 Banking and Brokerage Corporations; and Harlem-Hudson LLC, a real-estate development group.
In March of 2004, Mr. Cohen began funding and developing the seminal idea of Eco-Grid (a grid of renewable-energy technologies based on "locally grown" fuels within a 50 mile radius of Hudson, New York). Eco-Grid's first narrative and mission statement (energy-delivery, educational and community-based arms) were drafted that year. From 2004 to the present, Richard has helped to assemble Eco-Grid's team of specialists and has applied his entrepreneurial insights to the development of the project.