Leadership

Jeffrey Perlman is the President & 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 and is a 2019 Environmental + Energy Leader 100 honoree.

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.

Colleen guides and refines Bright Power’s strategic mission, ensuring all members of the team meet and exceed the organization’s goals. She works primarily with the Executive team to ensure each department is working efficiently and effectively, allowing the organization to have a greater reach and deeper impact.

Previously, Colleen served as the Director of Energy Analysis before her promotion to Chief of Staff.  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 and taking photos. She has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University.

Jamil enables Bright Power to use technology for good, creating more efficient and effective tailored solutions for our clients.  With experience across areas of technology and energy efficiency, Jamil’s strengths lie in connecting technology solutions to increase and enhance collaboration.

Prior to joining Bright Power, Jamil served as the CTO at BlocPower where he managed the development of their platform, lead product development, and built strategic partnerships to drive the company’s mission.

Jamil is a board member of CultureHub, a center for art and technology that connects communities around the world. When he’s not rooting for the Yankees, he’s spending time with his family, writing, and producing one of his two podcasts.

He received his B.S. in Computer Engineering from Columbia.

Andrew McNamara leads our West Coast team, manages and nurtures his team of engineers and project managers, and drives Bright Power to be a leader in California. Since joining Bright Power in 2006, Andrew quickly rose to Vice President in 2008 and became a member of the Board of Directors in 2013. Andrew led the firm’s sustainability and solar practices from 2008 to 2013 and the Engineering Division from 2013 to 2015.

He has worked on dozens of projects from coast-to-coast, including Via Verde—a groundbreaking 220 unit complex in the South Bronx that was recognized by the Urban Land Institute as a Global Project of the Decade for 2013s—and Marlton Manors—where his team’s solar thermal and PV installation was recognized by California Governor Jerry Brown and HUD Secretary Julian Castro.

Andrew formerly was an adjunct faculty member at NYU. He has a dual degree in Physics and Engineering from the University of Rochester.

Greg spearheads Bright Power’s first satellite office in Oakland, California. He brings extensive field experience in building audits and his expertise in lighting design, mechanical systems, and construction management to help new clients understand the impact of energy and water efficiency on their portfolio.

Greg builds partnerships with owners, managers, developers, architects, local government agencies, and other key stakeholders. He works to expand our national presence and helps Bright Power make an even greater impact in the buildings of our West Coast clients.

Prior to working at Bright Power, he was a commercial building appraiser and construction foreman. His energy audit experience has included multifamily residences, commercial offices, and industrial warehouses, and he relishes opportunities to conduct hands-on measurement and verification and use data to turn efficiency skeptics into believers. As he enters buildings, he can’t help looking up at lights in buildings, investigating suspicious building energy systems.

Sam has analyzed, troubleshot, designed, built, and commissioned at Bright Power since 2008. He now oversees our engineering and construction divisions.

In helping develop many of our services, he’s been grateful to learn from people and situations of all types that let him observe, question, experiment, break things, and fix things, albeit not necessarily in that order.

Sam holds a B.M. from New York University.

John Rodger Clasby leads our On-site Generation team and has extensive experience in safe and efficient solar projects.

He has over 15 years of construction and management experience in the solar industry. Prior to joining Bright Power, John served in leadership positions in solar organizations such as Premier Solar Solutions LLC, 64 Solar LLC, OnForce Solar, and SunPower. He is passionate about solar and its potential to change the world.

John is a father to two fantastic young women and husband to an outstanding wife. He is a fanatical vegetable gardener and loves to grow Paw Paw fruit! John holds a B.S. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Dan Levin has a long record of providing energy procurement consulting services to large energy users across the US. Beginning in 1997 with the deregulation of Con Edison, Dan assisted clients in navigating the early phases to deregulation and the many changes that took place over the subsequent years as the markets matured and became more volatile. Dan’s energy consulting career includes seven years with Ernst and Young LP and seven years with his own firm, which was acquired by Bright Power in April 2014.

Dan specializes in developing energy risk management strategies and conducting retail energy procurements for corporations, commercial and residential real estate firms, hotels, universities, manufacturers, and hospitals. He has effectively negotiated supply contracts throughout the United States.

Dan’s other expertise includes physical commodity hedging, energy risk management, comparative cost/savings analyses, load aggregation, budget preparation and forecasting, energy contract assessment, landlord/tenant energy cost evaluations, and governmental/utility energy conservation programs. He has extensive knowledge of utility tariffs, bill analysis, and the processes required for assessing and maximizing the benefits from the deregulation of electrical and natural gas utilities.

In addition to his Bright Power duties, Dan has served as Co-President of the NY Energy Consumers Council (NYECC) since its inception. In that role, Dan has the opportunity to be an active part in the regulatory process pursuing fair and reasonable utility rates through intervention with the NYS Public Service Commission. He was recognized in 2018 with an Energy New York Award (ENYA) for his leadership and commitment to NYECC. Dan has a B.S. (Cum Laude) from New York University.

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.

James advises local, regional and national multifamily property owners, managers and lenders on how to best deploy energy efficiency, solar energy, cogeneration and green building features across their portfolios and in their development projects. James has helped his clients implement energy projects under a number of different structures including power purchase agreements, debt financing, and outright purchases.

To date, James has consulted on or lead the development of energy efficiency retrofit projects totaling over $30 million in project costs, solar PV and thermal projects totaling over 5 MW in capacity and cogeneration projects totaling over 2.5 MW in size.

James’ previous experience includes having worked at Morgan Stanley and Associated Renewable. He received a B.A. in History from the University of Pennsylvania.

Andrea manages team members working on ground-up new construction and commissioning projects. She also oversees long-term strategic planning for the new construction team and helps cultivate client relationships.

Andrea co-founded the New Construction division after seeing an opportunity to expand Bright Power’s offerings to build green multifamily buildings from their conception.

Additionally, she serves as a Senior Project Manager for high impact, unique projects that require deep experience, technical guidance, and detail. Daily activities of her team involve working with design teams to optimize design, conducting construction phase inspections and testing, as well as complying with relevant programs such as LEED, NYSERDA, Enterprise Green Communities, and Passive House.

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. She also is a 2019 Environmental + Energy Leader 100 honoree.

Dave runs the Audit & Feasibility and the Design & Implementation teams at Bright Power, overseeing existing building energy audits, retro-commissioning and specialty energy- and water-related feasibility studies.

Dave relies on his experience in building science, energy modeling, and construction management to investigate the complexities of buildings.

Before coming to Bright Power, he worked as a construction manager, utility program administrator, and energy auditor.

In his free time, Dave dabbles in graphic design and lexicography. He loves soccer, camping, biking, and volleyball.

Dave has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland.

As Director of Retrofit Installation for the Western Region, Aron manages the installation of energy and water improvements for our West Coast clients. Aron ensures their projects are completed on time, on budget, and with savings.

With decades of experience in energy and water retrofits, Aron has a vast knowledge of efficiency measures and their impact on multifamily properties. Prior to joining Bright Power, Aron served as the Corporate Director, Engineering and Utilities at Caesars Entertainment Corporation. There he managed the facilities engineering over 40 properties across the country, developed and implemented large central plant optimizations, retro-commissioned systems, and ensured the efficiency and sustainability of the properties.

He has also had various roles in other organizations including being an energy manager on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC and national operations manager for energy services at Siemens Building Technologies group. Outside of work, Aron’s hobbies range from scuba diving to chess.

He received his B.S. from Boston University, attended Whittier Law School, and is a Certified Energy Manager.

Samantha helps building owners, managers, and operators reduce utility and operations costs through a targeted approach using on-site training, remote monitoring, and technical support to strengthen each organization’s capacity to make critical planning and repair decisions.

Formerly serving as the Director of Housing Development and Sustainability at Selfhelp Community Services, Samantha managed facilities operations and energy performance for the Selfhelp portfolio and provided technical coordination for new development and construction projects. She has also helped to develop a Technical Service program, focusing on portfolio benchmarking, energy audits, construction management, and technical review to assist affordable housing owners throughout New York City.

She spearheaded the development of The Green Capital Needs Assessments (GCNA), used for long-term energy-related and non-energy-related planning and budgeting, developed training sessions for building staff, and deployed an interactive engagement program to educate tenants.

Samantha has a B.S. in Architectural Engineering and proudly co-founded BLISS, a group meet up for Boss Ladies in Sustainable Services. When she is not at work, you can find Samantha cooking, running and training for marathons, or taking her dog Brooklyn on long walks. She has been to 43 states and has a goal to get to the remaining seven by running races in each them!

Toby analyzes energy and building data to provide insight into how well buildings perform and enable clients to take action to improve buildings. Leveraging our energy benchmarking software, EnergyScoreCards, Toby helps clients actively manage energy in buildings, identify opportunities and measure results.

Toby first came to Bright Power as one of the first clients of EnergyScoreCards during his tenure as Vice President, Energy Management for Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH). At POAH he analyzed opportunities for resource conservation and implemented cost-effective energy and water efficiency projects across a multifamily real estate portfolio.

Most recently, Toby was the Director of Innovation for PowerOptions where he developed new plans, products, and opportunities for collaboration with PowerOptions members and partners. Toby also worked at Consortium for Energy Efficiency, managing initiatives for energy efficiency in distribution transformers, water treatment, and motor management.

Toby has a B.S. in Biology from Duke University and received his M.B.A. from the F.W. Olin School of Management at Babson College.

Michael provides technical support to the engineering team, leveraging his experience on projects across Bright Power’s spectrum of services, including distributed generation, energy storage, HVAC, building envelope, and controls.

Michael also works closely with Bright Power’s energy management clients, providing specialized troubleshooting, assistance in capital and strategic planning, and operations and maintenance consulting. He has had the good fortune to encounter a lot of old, interesting machines, and learn from a lot of interesting people (young and old).

Michael is a member of ASHRAE, ASME, and an adjunct professor at New York University where he teaches at the Schack Institute of Real Estate. He holds a B.S. in Physics from Fordham University and a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University.

Wesley leads Bright Power’s organizational improvement and efficiency efforts, focusing heavily on developing internal systems and processes that facilitate cross-team collaboration and ensure high-quality service delivery.

Prior to joining Bright Power, Wesley spent his time pursuing a number of entrepreneurial ventures, the most recent being his co-founding of ultiworld.com, an online sports media platform.

Originally from Royal Palm Beach, Florida, he completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Florida and received his Master’s from New York University with concentrations in Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy.

Betsy drives the organization’s marketing strategy, concentrating on digital and event marketing to tell Bright Power’s compelling story. Betsy hones Bright Power’s messaging and brand to simplify and condense complex ideas and information.

Prior to joining Bright Power, Betsy led the digital and event marketing efforts at The Energy Project, a boutique consulting firm focused on solving organizations’ most challenging human capital problems. Betsy also served as a special events manager and fundraiser for the American Cancer Society in Philadelphia where she raised over $1.3M in the fight against cancer during the height of the financial crisis.

Betsy is an avid traveler and dog lover. When not at work, she enjoys spending time with her husband and toy poodle. She received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Felicia leads the growth, development, health, and safety of Bright Power’s staff in her role as Director of Human Resources. She has a motivational and energetic approach to human resources, with a background in the financial services and education industries.

Prior to joining Bright Power, Felicia was the Human Resources Director at Mitchell & Titus LLP, the largest minority-owned accounting firm in the U.S. offering assurance, tax, and advisory professional services. She also was the Director of Human Resources at New York City’s Department of Education and the Allen School, and the Human Resources Manager for Brinks, Incorporated, managing HR functions for four branches.

In Felicia’s 15 years of tenure, she has built HR departments from the ground up, implementing standards and compliance, creating and revamping employee handbooks, creating and implementing policies and procedures, standardizing job descriptions, and introducing performance management systems. She strongly believes that “people are the most important and valuable part of a company; HR is the internal organs that give it life.”

Felicia dabbles in photography and enjoys being the unofficial photographer at events, birthday parties, and weddings. She believes that capturing those small details and memories that last forever is why she fell in love with the camera. Felicia is also an avid bowler, self-proclaimed foodie, and loves to dance. She is a proud mom to two teenage daughters. She has a B.S. in Business Management.

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 has been a Board Member of the Fifth Avenue Committee in Brooklyn for ten years.