Innovative Solutions to Climate Change

Fred is a senior executive with over 45 years in the fields of energy and environment. After obtaining a Bachelor of Education from McGill University in Montreal, he graduated from York University in 1973 with a Masters in Environmental Studies and was hired by Professor Bill Kemp to join a team  documenting the Inuit Use and Occupation of the Arctic - for Inuit Land Claims in Nunavut, and after that by Carol Brice-Bennett to do the same on the North Labrador Coast (Nunatsiavut). Seeing diesels operating across the north motivated him to address small-scale renewable energy systems as well as energy efficiency for Remote Communities and he participated in several renewable energy evaluations for Quebec's James Bay Communities. In 1981 he was hired as manager of the Remote Power Unit in the Ontario Ministry of Energy. There he managed the planning and installation of 20 small hydro, wind, solar, and biomass systems and efficiency installations, and with industry co-developed new wind (wind/diesel) and hydro-electric (small Kaplan turbine with adjustable blades) technology. He also participated in the planning, design, and construction of Peawanuk, a completely new First Nations community on the Ontario shore of Hudson Bay that community members built themselves. In 1990 he moved with his family to California, first working with Energy Resources International and then from 1991 to 1995 at Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) as Program Manager of the EnergyWise Showcase Home Program where he taught 50 builders how to build super energy-efficient homes, built 72 homes (subdivisions and custom)with them, and toured over 300,000 customers through the homes. In 1991 he won both the PG&E Chairman’s Award, and the Conservation and Environment Challenge Award from the President of the United States. From 1996 to 1999 he was marketing manager at Trinity Flywheel, commercializing a high-speed flywheel energy storage device, delivering to the US Navy and Raytheon, and doing a demonstration to store residential solar power for the California Energy Commission. From 2001 to 2005 he was Manager of Renewables and Advanced Generation for the City of San Francisco PUC, where he developed and delivered the SFPUC solar program and co-managed a suite of renewable energy projects with the California Energy Commission. In 2004 the SFPUC won a Green Power Award from US EPA/DOE, and in 2005 Fred was featured in a film The Power of the Sun, written by John Perlin and two Nobel Laureates and directed by famous documentary filmmaker David Kennard. From 2006 to 2009 he was VP Marketing for Intellergy Corp. specializing in the conversion of organic waste to hydrogen. From 2009 to 2014 Fred worked for Northland Power Inc., where he rose to Senior Director of Business Development and was responsible for Northland acquiring a contract with the US Department of Defense to supply wind projects to the Army. Since 2016 Fred has been an Adjunct Professor at York University's (Toronto) Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change. He is also the Executive Director of the International Renewable Energy Academy (IREA) at York, where they have trained students and engineers from 20 countries how to scope out and install renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency projects and programs. At  the University of California Riverside Center For Environmental Research and Technology he is Executive Director of the Solar Valley Consortium, where they advocate for the deployment of solar and energy storage throughout Inland Southern California through with Webinars and Conferences and through collaboration with members, the public, agencies, cities, federal and state governments, non-profits and interest groups and through outreach on LinkedIn and other media channels.  He has published three books (available on Amazon), has written Op-Eds for the Globe and Mail on waste to hydrogen, and small hydro, and co-published papers for the IEEE, and the Canadian IEEE on solar power and small hydro. 

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