Leadership

Jeffrey Perlman is the CEO, President, and Founder of Bright Power. An experienced energy auditor, energy analyst, and solar-energy-system designer, Jeff is as happy in a boiler room or on a rooftop as he is in a corporate boardroom. He has built Bright Power from a single rented desk in a shared office to the substantial enterprise that it is today. Jeff was named to Crain's New York 40 Under 40 Class of 2018, listed as a 2019 Environmental + Energy Leader 100 honoree, recognized as a top power player by City & State’s Energy & Environment Power list in 2019 and 2020, and recognized as a RealLeaders Earth Advocate in 2021.

In addition to his work at Bright Power, Jeff serves on the board of the New Alternatives Fund, a mutual fund that invests in renewable energy. He has taught as adjunct faculty at NYU, CUNY, and Pratt. Prior to founding Bright Power, Jeff worked with Greg Kats at Capital E, with whom he co-authored “The Costs and Financial Benefits of Green Buildings,” a ground-breaking report that used economic cost/benefit analysis to show that building healthy, energy-efficient, and environmentally responsible buildings makes economic sense.

Outside of improving the sustainability and comfort of the built environment, Jeff is an accomplished clarinetist. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and three sons, with whom he enjoys making milk carton solar cars and soda bottle rockets.

Jeff has a B.S. in Applied Physics from Yale University.

Justin is Bright Power's CFO. Originally from the UK, Justin has lived/worked in Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia and now in the US. He is a Fellow Chartered Management Accountant with over 10 years of CFO experience having worked across multiple industries for both private and public companies making Justin the perfect fit to drive the financial strategy of Bright Power.

Colleen plays a critical role as Executive Vice President of Operational Excellence where she helps the organization clarify its objectives, align efforts across the company, and access the metrics and information to measure and drive success.

Previously, Colleen served as Executive Vice President of National, Chief of Staff, and Director of Energy Analysis. As EVP of National, Colleen led our National operations, and as Chief of Staff, she guided and refined Bright Power’s strategic mission. As Director of Energy Analysis, she supervised a staff of seven to show clients how well their buildings performed. She also managed EnergyScoreCards Minnesota, a study on the effects of energy benchmarking for multifamily buildings in Minnesota.

Prior to joining Bright Power, Colleen worked as an energy engineer at TRC Energy Services developing and managing energy efficiency programs within New Jersey’s Clean Energy Program. She also worked at Iberdrola Renewables, planning and overseeing construction of large-scale wind farms throughout the US.

Colleen loves to spend time in the great outdoors, usually hiking with her husband, two young kids, and dog. She has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University.

FAVORITE PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT BOOK: Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
FAVORITE FOOD: Mashed potatoes (fun fact: I had a mashed potato bar at my wedding)

Andrea leads the operations of the New York business unit. Pairing her deep technical expertise in building sustainable, high performing projects with an ability to create and execute efficient business processes, Andrea’s goal is to ensure the financial success of the business unit while delivering strong, proven services to our New York-based clients. Andrea is also very active in the industry, consulting with government agencies, green building programs, clients, and product manufacturers to ensure efficiency and sustainability goals can be met through proper goal setting and alignment.

Prior to her role as Executive Vice President, New York, Andrea led the New Construction division, which she co-founded after seeing an opportunity to expand Bright Power’s offerings to build green multifamily buildings from their conception. In her role as Director of New Construction, she managed team members working on ground-up new construction and commissioning projects, supervised long-term strategic planning for the division, and helped cultivate client relationships.

Ultimately, Andrea’s mission is to continuously improve the standard of energy efficiency and sustainability best practices across the development, design, and construction industries.

Andrea is an active volunteer for GreenHomeNYC and is a proud member of the Women in Construction advocacy group. Andrea is a Board Member for Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) and a 2019 Environmental + Energy Leader 100 honoree.

Jon Braman provides technical oversight, team coordination, and assistance with incentives to transform energy analysis into energy savings. He creates straightforward ways to communicate complex patterns of building energy use via our energy benchmarking software, EnergyScoreCards, which he helped develop and launch. His team's mission is to make sustainable buildings and operation the norm through the cultivation of industry partnerships, pilot programs, and research.

Jon’s extensive research on green buildings appears in Greening our Built World: Costs, Benefits and Strategies (co-authored with Greg Kats, Island Press, 2009) and the 2006 Capital E report, “Greening America’s Schools: Costs and Benefits.” He also led the EnergyScoreCards Minnesota study and the Energy & Water Savings in Multifamily Retrofits report. He collaborates with partners like CPC, the Building Energy Exchange, and Affordable Community Energy Services to help explain the benefits of energy efficiency and to catalyze new ways to bring efficiency to scale.

Previously, he has worked at Good Energies, a leading investor in renewable energy and green buildings, with State Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGS) and on a sustainable homestead in Hawaii.

Jon is in pursuit of practical strategies to reduce environmental impacts and save money: strategies that can be replicated across the industry to help achieve critical carbon reductions to mitigate global warming. When not putting these into practice at Bright Power, he communicates them to a wider audience via beats and rhymes as a ukulele hip-hop artist.

Jon has a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale University.

Dave Sachs is the Vice President of Existing Buildings at Bright Power where he runs Energy Audit and Retrofit Consulting and Implementation teams, overseeing existing building energy audits, retro-commissioning, feasibility studies, and the design and installation of energy and water retrofits. With over 15 years of experience in the industry, Dave relies on his knowledge of building science, energy efficiency, and construction management to investigate and solve complex energy and water issues in buildings. In addition to his work at Bright Power, Dave has served on multiple working groups to help New York City reach its climate goals. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland.

Dave lives in Brooklyn with his wife, two daughters, and a carrot-obsessed dog.

Joe helps lead the operations of our New York business unit, including energy management services, onsite generation consulting and installation, and channel partnerships.

Prior to joining Bright Power, Joe worked for Carbon Lighthouse where he held the position of VP of People Operations, among other roles. There, he founded a project management division and later relocated from SF to NY, establishing an office and growing it from 5 to 35 employees. Before Carbon Lighthouse, Joe worked for Nestlé USA in engineering, operations, and production roles.

In his free time, Joe can be found enjoying the outdoors in Central Park with his wife and dog. He has a B.S. in Biosystems Engineering from Michigan State University.

PERSONAL MOTTO/FAVORITE QUOTE: "Stay fit, keep sharp, make good decisions" — Ghostbusters 2
IN MY SPARE TIME, I LIKE TO: Walk the dog in central park

Jeannine Altavilla works with a team that analyzes energy and building data to provide insight into how well buildings perform. Their service helps clients actively manage energy in buildings, identify opportunities, measure results, and adhere to city and state energy laws and corporate ESG commitments.

Prior to joining Bright Power, Jeannine was the analyst for the Arlington Initiative to Rethink Energy in Arlington County, Virginia. She benchmarked County facilities, completed greenhouse gas emissions inventories, and aided in a variety of other programs all working towards achieving the carbon-neutral vision of Arlington's Community Energy Plan. Before that, she worked at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments on regional energy policy.

Jeannine lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. When she is not working she enjoys hiking, working out, and traveling. She is an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution in New York and Virginia, and at the national level.

FAVORITE PLACE TO VACATION: Puglia, Italy
HOW I TAKE MY COFFEE: Black
ONE THING YOU WOULD BE SURPRISED TO KNOW ABOUT ME IS: "I've performed on clarinet for audiences in 6 countries, including for one US Ambassador and at the White House as an amateur musician in wind ensembles and orchestras."

Samuel helps multifamily affordable real estate owners, developers, and managers in the Greater New York metro area understand their energy use and create strategies to decrease their carbon emissions. In his role, Sam works to expand Bright Power’s customer base by cultivating relationships with new and long-standing customers that could benefit from our Find, Fix, and Follow approach to energy and water management.

Before becoming Vice President, Multifamily Affordable for our New York Business Unit, Samuel was the Manager of Affordable Housing Services where he worked with some of the most impactful affordable and supportive housing organizations across New York. His work with these organizations led Bright Power to be a preeminent energy consulting company for both new and renovated affordable housing buildings, including the growth of the company’s leading work with electrified and passive house multifamily properties.

Prior to joining Bright Power, Samuel worked at the Pratt Center for Community Development and the New York Industrial Retention Network.

Samuel is a native New Yorker and volunteers with the New York Housing Conference’s Rising Leaders Network (RLN), serving as co-chair of the RLN board. Samuel has a B.A. from the University of Michigan.

Kelly Knutsen, Ph.D, is focused on helping lenders and multifamily property owners, operators, and managers increase operating income, reduce energy and water costs and consumption, and increase tenant comfort. He helps them reduce their carbon footprint to meet their company’s goals as well as requirements of their lending programs or jurisdictions. Kelly also serves as a policy expert for Bright Power, liaising with government agencies and program administrators to ensure Bright Power's customers not only fulfill their compliance obligations but also take advantage of incentive programs. Using his technical background while in a sales role, Kelly developed and sold the largest electrification retrofit in the country at a 260 unit low-income senior property in Sacramento, removing 100% of old gas-fired equipment and replacing with highly efficient heat pump technologies.

Prior to joining Bright Power, Kelly led policy efforts at the local, state and federal level for clean energy trade associations and served in the U.S. Senate and U.S. Department of Energy. He helped enact the policies that required solar on all new homes in California, created a 10-year $1 billion incentive program for California low-income multifamily housing, secured an additional $1 billion for the federal low-income home income heating program, and even established a new national park in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Outside of work, Kelly loves hanging out with his amazing wife and two children, coaching the kiddos’ soccer teams and playing drums and guitar.

MY PERSONAL MOTTO: “Be nice and no surprises.”
ONE THING YOU WOULD BE SURPRISED TO KNOW ABOUT ME IS: Prior to leading sales/business development efforts and becoming a policy wonk, I started my career blasting solar cell materials with lasers as a postdoctoral research scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Jessica helps real estate owners, developers, and managers across the country understand their energy use and create strategies to decrease their carbon emissions. In her role, Jessica works to expand Bright Power’s customer base by cultivating relationships with new and long-standing customers that could benefit from our Find, Fix, and Follow approach to energy and water management.

Before becoming Vice President of Business Development for our National Business Unit, Jessica was the Manager of Affordable Housing Services where she worked with some of the most innovative affordable housing owners and developers to electrify their properties, build to Passive House standards, and dramatically reduce their energy consumption.

Prior to joining Bright Power, Jessica worked for Healthy Planet Partners where she financed and managed the deployment of renewable energy technologies for commercial buildings and sports facilities. Before Healthy Planet Partners, Jessica worked at NRDC helping coordinate sustainability initiatives with professional sports leagues, teams and facilities, and entertainment events including the Grammys and the Academy Awards.

In her free time, Jessica practices yoga daily and sings in a band with other Bright Power team members.

Jessica has a B.A. from Wheaton College and a M.S. in Sustainability Management from Columbia University.

Carmel and her team work on building performance and sustainability in ground-up new construction and rehabilitation projects at Bright Power. She also directs long-term strategic planning for the sustainability service divisions and helps cultivate client relationships. Additionally, Carmel provides oversight for high-impact, unique projects that require deep experience, technical guidance, and detail.

Daily activities of her divisions include working with project teams to optimize design and building operations, conducting construction phase inspections and performance testing, and complying with relevant efficiency incentive and certification programs such as ENERGY STAR, LEED, Enterprise Green Communities, and Passive House. The projects served by these divisions are primarily multifamily affordable housing, which presents the biggest opportunity and impact at the crossroads of building decarbonization, social justice, and sustainability.

Prior to joining Bright Power, Carmel served as the Sustainability Director at The Levy Partnership (now McGrann Associates), and as a Sustainability Consultant at Steven Winter Associates where she performed a variety of building energy services, as well as research and development projects.

Carmel has a B.S. in Architecture and is a Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC), a LEED Green Rater, and a RESNET HERS Rater. She is an active member of Passive House Accelerator and a former Board member at New York Passive House.

What Carmel likes to do in her spare time: When she isn’t inside focusing on the built environment, she can be found exploring and enjoying the great outdoors; usually hiking or SUP boarding.

ONE THING YOU WOULD BE SURPRISED TO KNOW ABOUT ME: "My grandfather was a physicist who invented the silicon photoelectric cell that enables modern day solar PV technology, and it's an honor to continue his legacy in energy!"

Juan leads, organizes, and optimizes Bright Power’s technology stack as the Director of Information Technology. Since Juan joined in February 2020, he has implemented technology that has enabled Bright Power’s workforce to stay connected regardless of their physical location.

Before joining Bright Power, Juan served Sabra Dipping Company for over seven years in a variety of IT roles. There he designed the internal IT project management framework and managed the global service desk.

Outside of work, Juan enjoys writing music on his guitar, engineering audio in his home studio, and playing Cards Against Humanity with his friends and family.

Pristine is the legal counsel for Bright Power, managing the company's contracts, insurance, and intellectual property, as well as managing risk and ensuring legal compliance in all of Bright Power's operations.

Prior to joining Bright Power, Pristine was an intellectual property attorney and an environmental engineer. She graduated from Columbia University with a B.S. and received her J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Pristine is Co-Chair of the Board of the Fifth Avenue Committee in Brooklyn.