CALSTART on July 1, announced that two clean transportation industry executives have joined its board of directors and will provide strategic advice and direction as the organization works to build the industry in California and nationally. Representative of CALSTART’s support of a diversity of new fuels and technologies, one of the new members is a leader in electric transit bus operations and the other is an expert in the use of methane as a transportation fuel.
Donna DeMartino general manager/CEO at San Joaquin Regional Transit District (RTD) helped champion the first deployment of zero emission transit buses in the San Joaquin Valley. DeMartino was appointed RTD’s general manager/CEO in 2001 and currently serves as the chair of the California Transit Association’s Executive Committee. Prior to joining RTD, she spent over 14 years at Sacramento Regional Transit (RT), where she was a member of the light rail start-up team and also worked in rail operations, contracts administration, engineering and construction, and facilities and capital program management.
Jeffrey Reed is the director business strategy and technology advancement for Southern California Gas Co. In that capacity, he leads development of business strategies and initiatives aimed at supporting the development and deployment of sustainable energy solutions and leads the natural gas RD&D, energy efficiency technology and venture investment programs. He has also led numerous company initiatives related to renewable and low-carbon energy technologies and policy. Prior to joining the Sempra utilities, Reed was a senior strategy consultant with Booz-Allen Hamilton and Accenture, and was an officer with ABB Power Generation in Switzerland.
“Ms. DeMartino and Dr. Reed bring new and important perspectives to the Board and add valuable insights from their successful experience leading change in the clean transportation sector,” said George Survant, senior director of fleet services for Time Warner Cable, and CALSTART’s board chair. “Donna offers significant transit expertise and is a pioneer in the electric bus sector and Jeff brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in the use of both fossil and renewable natural gas as a transportation fuel. These two new members will help drive our efforts to develop and promote more fuel-efficient technologies and encourage public transit,” he continued.
With the addition of DeMartino and Reed, CALSTART will have 14 board members. In addition to Survant, other board officers include Vice Chair Puon Penn who is executive vice president, group head - technology and venture banking at Wells Fargo Bank, and board Secretary Mike Britt, director of maintenance and engineering international operations, ground fleet, at UPS.
