Jan Pepper
Chief Executive Officer

Jan Pepper has over 30 years of energy and utility experience, with a focus on renewable energy contracting and financing. She joined Peninsula Clean Energy as CEO in May 2016 as the first employee and is leading the organization to deliver 100% renewable energy on a 24/7 basis by 2025, and transition transportation and building energy use away from fossil fuels to clean electricity. Peninsula Clean Energy is the community choice aggregation agency for San Mateo County and the City of Los Banos. Peninsula Clean Energy has two investment grade credit ratings and has saved its customers over $90 million since its inception by delivering cleaner and greener electricity at a 5% discount to all of its customers.

Jan was elected to the Los Altos City Council in 2012 and served as Mayor in 2015 and 2020.  She served on the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District from 2013 to February 2017. She earned a BS in civil engineering and an MBA, both from Stanford University. Jan is a registered professional engineer in California.

Jan formerly worked at Silicon Valley Power and has founded four energy-related start-ups. At APX, she developed and pioneered the first use of renewable energy credits, which are now the standard currency for trading and tracking renewable power. At Clean Power Markets, her company designed and implemented the successful Solar Renewable Energy Credit (SREC) program for the State of New Jersey.

Shawn Marshall
Chief Operating Officer

Shawn will help lead internal efforts toward meeting Peninsula Clean Energy’s strategic plan, which has succeeded in delivering zero-emission electricity to its customers and is now focused on dramatically reducing carbon emissions from the transportation and building sectors.

Shawn was a founder and board member of Marin Clean Energy (MCE), California’s first CCA agency. She was also the founder and executive director of LEAN Energy US, a national organization that provides resources and market expertise to state and local governments and other organizations wishing to pursue CCAs.

Nelly Wogberg
Board Clerk, Executive Assistant to the CEO, and Office Manager

As the Board Clerk, Nelly works as the liaison between Peninsula Clean Energy staff and the Board of Directors. She organizes all aspects of public meetings, supports the CEO, Jan Pepper, as her Executive Assistant, and manages the needs of the office.

Prior to joining Peninsula Clean Energy, Nelly worked for the City of Palo Alto as the Deputy City Clerk. She holds a BS in Business Management from Notre Dame de Namur University and speaks Spanish.

Hailey Wu
Associate Manager, Financial Planning and Analysis

Hailey leads financial planning, modeling, analysis and reporting. Prior to joining Peninsula Clean Energy, Hailey was a Structured Finance Associate with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in their New York Office.

While there, she supported the execution of 23 project finance transactions in the energy industry. After moving to California, Hailey worked at SunPower and GlassPoint Solar as a Project Finance Analyst, financing utility scale solar projects. She has a passion for renewable energy and wants to make the world cleaner and greener!

Hailey holds a Master of Finance from MIT Sloan School of Management, and a BA from Purdue University where she majored in Accounting and Management with a minor in Finance.

Kim Le
Senior Manager of Data and Technology

Kim is responsible for our data warehouse infrastructure and analytics platform. She has successfully developed and managed data systems for a range of applications from startup to Fortune 500 companies.

Prior to Peninsula Clean Energy, Kim led the development of data analytics for Ridecell, a mobility platform for ridesharing, car sharing and fleet operations. Prior to that she served for eight years at multi-national AECOM, providing data analysis and simulation for global logistics and operations projects. Kim received her B.S. in computer engineering from the University of California, Davis.

Leslie Brown
Director of Account Services

Leslie serves as an advocate and energy advisor for all customers, providing oversight for customer account management and support in customer participation in our programs.

Leslie comes to Peninsula Clean Energy with over 17 years of customer service and marketing experience from Silicon Valley Power (SVP), the City of Santa Clara’s municipal electric utility. At SVP Leslie primarily managed renewable energy programs, overseeing 15 MW of customer installed solar generation while also leading the utility’s award winning voluntary REC program Santa Clara Green Power.

Shayna Barnes
Operations Specialist

Shayna works on Peninsula Clean Energy’s Supplier Diversity and Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion initiatives in addition to supporting human resources operations and the Account Services team in billing operations and customer care.

Shayna graduated with a BA from Cornell University. Prior to Peninsula Clean Energy, she worked as a research associate at a food microbiology start-up in San Jose. A Bay Area native, she is excited to be back home and contributing to her community’s efforts to mitigate climate change. In her free time she enjoys playing water polo and running and hiking on local trails.

Masha Doubrovskaia
Account Services Analyst

Masha supports customer service and business operations with quantitative analysis, including billing, carbon emissions, customer programs, and energy rates. She is passionate about the transition to clean energy and moved back to her home state after learning about CCAs and their efforts to transition California to renewable energy.

Most recently, Masha was a GIS data analyst at Apple. Prior to that she was a program representative and GIS analyst at Central Coast Community Energy. She was previously on the board of the British Columbia Sustainable Energy Association for two years, where she managed a team of volunteers to support a variety of sustainable projects.

Masha earned a bachelor of science in natural resources and conservation from the University of British Columbia. She enjoys hiking, trying new sports or new food, reading, and exploring the Bay Area.

Rafael Reyes
Director of Energy Programs

Rafael provides strategic direction to our programs with an emphasis on transportation, building electrification, and distributed energy resources.

Rafael’s career includes nearly 20 years in clean energy policies and programs as well as 15 years in high-tech project management, system architecture and business consulting.

Rafael has led and supported nearly $80 million in clean energy projects through his prior roles as VP of Community Initiatives at Prospect Silicon Valley and founding Executive Director of the Bay Area Climate Collaborative which merged with ProspectSV in 2015. His projects included an advanced solar-storage pilot, EV infrastructure and fleet deployments, vehicle-grid integration pilots, LED streetlight upgrades and the nation’s largest EV ride and drive campaign.

Rafael was born in Peru, is fluent in Spanish, and has a Master’s degree in Anthropology from UC Berkeley and a dual computer science/anthropology undergraduate degree with honors from UC Santa Cruz. He served on the Sustainability & Infrastructure Commission at the City of San Mateo and the Sierra Club’s national Board of Directors.

Phillip Kobernick
Programs Manager, Transportation

Phillip leads key transportation electrification initiatives including fleets and infrastructure innovation.

Prior to joining Peninsula Clean Energy, Phillip was the Logistics Services Manager for Alameda County, overseeing operational programs, including the municipal fleet of 1,200 vehicles. During his time at Alameda County, he developed the clean transportation program, including overseeing a joint procurement of electric vehicles and charging stations across 10 agencies, growing the County’s green fleet program to hundreds of hybrid and electric vehicles and nearly 200 EV charge ports, pilot testing advanced energy controls for EV fleets, and a comprehensive clean commute program to reduce drive-alone trips. He has a BA from UCLA.

Blake Herrschaft
Programs Manager, Buildings

Blake leads key building electrification initiatives including reach codes and electrification programs.

Blake has been working in the green building space for 15 years. His work has included mechanical and plumbing design, energy modeling, LEED consulting, water efficiency, zero net energy buildings, portfolio energy retrofits. Blake’s award-winning designs span five continents, and his first all-electric building was University of San Diego’s Torrero Field Ballpark.

Blake is originally from Philadelphia, PA and has called California home for most of his adult life. He holds an Architectural Engineering degree from The Pennsylvania State University, is a registered Professional Mechanical Engineer with the State of California, and is a LEED Accredited Professional. His public service included Chairing the Ocean Beach Planning Board – San Diego’s most eclectic beach community.

Peter Levitt
Programs Manager, Distributed Energy Resources

Peter leads our effort to increase the amount of local clean power within San Mateo County by developing a strategy to create and roll out new distributed energy programs.

Coming from a solar + storage background at SolarCity/Tesla, he brings four years of experience in C&I and small-utility project development, program development, and energy M&A. He has dual degrees in Entrepreneurial Management and Spanish from Penn State, and is bilingual.

An avid believer in the power of sustainability, Peter is also the VP of Partnerships and Impact for seedSF Consulting Group, which provides pro bono consulting services to environmental non-profits in the Bay Area.

Alejandra Posada
Associate Programs Manager

Alejandra manages several Peninsula Clean Energy transportation and building electrification programs.

Alejandra oversees our EV incentive and awareness programs, our home upgrade program, and other building technology pilots. Other responsibilities include research and analysis of program options, management of our project management platform, and outreach to partners and clients.

Prior to joining our Energy Programs team, Alejandra was a Communications and Outreach Fellow. Prior to joining Peninsula Clean Energy, Alejandra provided community outreach for a nonprofit-run group-purchasing solar program and also worked as an environmental analyst doing CEQA work.

Alejandra graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a double major in environmental studies and global studies. Her past academic research work included a detailed analysis of the distributed solar potential for the City of Santa Barbara.

Marc Hershman
Director of Governmental Affairs

Marc brings to Peninsula Clean Energy over 30 years of government and legislative experience. Prior to Peninsula Clean Energy, he was the district director for California State Senator Jerry Hill.

Previously he served as chief legislative aide for San Mateo County Supervisor Jerry Hill, legislative assistant to Rep. Robert T. Matsui on Capitol Hill, and community aide to Peninsula Rep. Tom Lantos.

Marc was elected to the Millbrae City Council and re-elected twice. He served 3 terms as mayor and was a member of the boards of directors of the San Mateo County Transit District (SamTrans) and the San Mateo County Transportation Authority. He practiced law with a private law firm on the Peninsula for nearly 20 years.

Marc holds has a J.D. from the Santa Clara University School of Law and a B.A. in economics and political science from UC Santa Barbara.

Jeremy Waen
Director of Regulatory Policy

Jeremy brings to Peninsula Clean Energy a decade of policy experience with Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs) during which he helped shape California energy policy to protect and foster the broader successes of CCAs.

Prior to Peninsula Clean Energy, he served as a Senior Associate for MRW & Associates. Prior to that, he served for five years as the Senior Regulatory Analyst at MCE, California’s first CCA. Prior to MCE, Jeremy gained policy advocacy experience through internships with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and the Clean Coalition.

Doug Karpa
Senior Regulatory Analyst

Doug joins Peninsula Clean Energy from the Clean Coalition, where he worked as Policy Director promoting policies to support local energy and storage.

Prior to that he has worked in private practice as a regulatory attorney at Bingham McCutchen and Holland & Knight, as well as a non-profit environmental advocate. Ultimately, he developed his passion for clean energy having earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University in climate change biology, which led him to conclude that science wasn’t going to be enough. As a result, he earned his J.D. at U.C. Berkeley in order to advance the clean energy transition.

Matthew Rutherford
Senior Regulatory Analyst

Matthew is a regulatory analyst with responsibility for a range of energy policy matters. Prior to Peninsula Clean Energy, Matthew served in regulatory affairs and compliance for a Vermont municipal electric department.

He represented the utility before the Vermont Public Utility Commission on a number of policy issues including net energy metering programs, development of plans to meet the State’s goals to reduce transportation emissions, and utility mandates to encourage electric customers to reduce fossil fuel use related to transportation and thermal applications. He also led the design, implementation, and administration of programs to encourage the adoption of building electrification (including air-source heat pumps and heat pump water heaters) and electric transportation (electric vehicles and electric vehicle charging equipment).

Matthew earned a BA in history from the University of Connecticut. He received a Masters of Environmental Law and Policy, and a Certificate in Energy Law from Vermont Law School.

KJ Janowski
Director of Marketing and Community Relations

KJ heads the marketing and community relations team, providing strategic leadership and direction.

Her prior experience includes 14 years as vice president of marketing for several software and hardware technology firms, where she launched products that generated more than $500M in revenue. Following her work on the management teams of four technology startup companies, KJ provided strategic marketing consulting services to a variety of companies in the clean tech, software, and computer technology sectors.

Most recently KJ was the VP of Startup Services and Strategic Programs for the non-profit cleantech innovation hub, Prospect Silicon Valley. A long-time environmental advocate, KJ served on the leadership team of environmental nonprofit GreenTown Los Altos, where she advocated for Community Choice Aggregation and led numerous initiatives as well as community education efforts.

KJ has an MBA from Stanford University and a B.S. from UC Berkeley.

Kirsten Andrews-Schwind
Senior Manager of Community Relations

Kirsten Andrews-Schwind oversees community stakeholder relations, outreach, grants, sponsorships, and needs assessments. She especially focuses on working with under-resourced and vulnerable communities. Kirsten also staffs Peninsula Clean Energy’s Citizens Advisory Committee.

As a resident of Pacifica, Kirsten served on Peninsula Clean Energy’s formation committee before the agency launched in 2016. She came on staff in 2017 to manage community outreach for the initial major customer enrollment. Kirsten co-founded and directed a nonprofit think tank advocating for climate resilience and community choice energy in 2005. She authored community resilience toolkits used by grassroots groups and policymakers in 30 countries in three languages. She also launched a Bay Area coalition of grassroots organizations working for social equity in resilience policy. Kirsten holds a BA in Economics and an MS in Natural Resources Management, and speaks Spanish.

Gerald Gottheil
Senior Manager of Marketing Communications

Gerald’s team is responsible for managing the brand, the website, and communications including email, printed material, digital and traditional forms of advertising.

Prior to Peninsula Clean Energy, Gerald led successful marketing programs for companies varying from start-up to Fortune 500, and in multiple markets, including: telecommunications, graphic arts, computer and network technology, virtual reality, renewable and clean energy. His background in energy includes marketing and program management for energy conservation, demand management, and time-of-use metering for utilities; and branding, public relations, and marketing communications for utility-scale solar energy systems.

Gerald holds a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from the University of Delaware, an MBA from San Diego State University, and is a licensed professional engineer in the state of California.

Sandra Benetti
Associate Manager of Community Relations

Sandra is the principal on-the-ground representative of Peninsula Clean Energy in Los Banos, serving as a liaison with the local government, special districts, and community organizations. Prior to Peninsula Clean Energy, Sandra worked for the City of Los Banos where she had accumulated over 15 years of public service experience, working closely with the elected and appointed officials. Most recently, she served in Community & Economic Development where she worked closely with the business community.

Sandra seeks to educate and generate enthusiasm within the community regarding the benefits of clean energy and sustainability programs.

Carlos Moreno
Programs Specialist

Carlos supports program development and implementation. In this role he develops program materials, provides customer support, and program coordination.

Prior to this role, Carlos served as a Marketing Communications Specialist where he developed and implemented marketing campaigns and on the Community Outreach team where he worked directly with the public to educate residents about Peninsula Clean Energy.

Before joining Peninsula Clean Energy, Carlos worked at RethinkWaste. He gave tours of the recycling facility and transfer station at the Shoreway Environmental Center. He also fostered relationships with cities throughout San Mateo County to help add recycling and compost bins in parks.

Carlos holds a BA in Politics from St. Mary’s College of California. He is bilingual in English and Spanish.

Michael Arnaldo
Digital Marketing Specialist

Michael is responsible for the operations side of our digital marketing communications. He produces the website, newsletter, emails, social media, and is responsible for marketing database operations.

Michael has over 10 years of digital marketing experience. Prior to Peninsula Clean Energy, he was a Digital Consultant for iHeartRadio & Entercom Communications supporting 6 radio stations in the Bay Area.

Vanessa Shin
Community Outreach Specialist

Vanessa aspires to connect community members with the benefits of clean energy and build relationships with trusted messengers in the community. She manages the Outreach Grant Program, coordinates partnerships with schools, and staffs the Citizens Advisory Committee.

Vanessa became interested in the role of clean energy in achieving local sustainability goals through implementing the City of Cupertino’s Climate Action Plan. She previously led youth engagement initiatives at Silicon Valley Clean Energy. She received a B.S. in Environmental Science from Santa Clara University.

Chelsea Keys
Senior Manager and Interim Director
Power Resources

Chelsea is responsible for leading and supporting the Power Resources team and has a wide range of responsibilities for advancing our power procurement needs. This includes negotiations for power purchase agreements, resource planning, risk management, contract management, regulatory compliance, and strategic planning.

Chelsea has a decade of experience in the energy industry. As a senior energy trader for The Energy Authority, she was responsible for supplying power across multiple counties in Washington state. She helped manage roughly 4,000 MWs of generation in the MID-C and CAISO hourly markets and has experience scheduling diverse energy portfolios.

Chelsea received an MS in Energy Management from Oklahoma City University and a BS from the University of Idaho.

Sara Maata
Renewable Energy and Compliance Analyst

Sara works on power supply planning, load forecasting, energy procurement, risk management, market monitoring, regulatory compliance, and settlements.

Prior to Peninsula Clean Energy, Sara was with the Alameda County Water District. As an Analyst/Engineer, she helped forecast demand, evaluate new water supplies and water storage projects, manage water supply purchases, optimize water production operations, and implement programs to help restore the California Central Coast Steelhead fishery in Alameda Creek.

Sara received a BS and an MS in civil engineering from Stanford University, and is a licensed Civil Engineer in California.

Mehdi Shahriari
Senior Renewable Energy Analyst

Mehdi performs quantitative analysis to support critical decisions for resource planning and portfolio management.

He devises new approaches to represent results to better support decision analysis and assimilate complex information into readily understood reports and presentations. He performs in-depth analysis of power market operations and support Peninsula Clean Energy in the areas of analytic modeling for portfolio optimization, risk management, and maintaining data systems.

Prior to joining Peninsula Clean Energy, Mehdi worked as a senior energy analyst at Ascend Analytics in Boulder, CO. His portfolio of projects includes Cost/Benefit Analysis of joining CAISO’s Energy Imbalance Market (EIM) for Turlock Irrigation District, Value of Solar Analysis for Duke Energy, and resource planning projects for Burbank Water and Power and Public Service Company of New Mexico. Mehdi received his PhD in energy and mineral engineering with a focus on energy management and policy from Pennsylvania State University. In addition, he holds master’s degrees in geographic information systems from the Pennsylvania State University and systems engineering from University of Tehran.

Sally Chen
Power Resources Manager

Sally is responsible for managing power supply contract compliance for Peninsula Clean Energy and their counterparties. In addition, she supports the power resources team with contract negotiation, power supply planning, research, and due diligence with respect to potential power supply opportunities, risk management, and invoice settlement and validation.

Before joining Peninsula Clean Energy, Sally worked at EDF Renewables as a contracts manager. Prior to that, she worked in the energy procurement department in SDG&E, holding various positions in energy risk management and energy contracts management & settlements.

Sally received her MBA from San Diego State University, with an emphasis in Finance.

David Silberman
General Counsel

Along with his service as a Chief Deputy County Counsel for County of San Mateo, David serves as the General Counsel to Peninsula Clean Energy. He has represented and advised public agencies since 2004.

Prior to joining the public sector, he worked as a litigator with the firm of Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin, focusing on commercial and intellectual property law, and clerked for Fortunato Benavides of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Robert Timlin of the Central District of California. David obtained his law degree from U.C.L.A. School of Law with highest honors in 2000.

Jennifer Stalzer
Deputy County Counsel

Jennifer joined the County Counsel’s Office in 2012. She is currently assigned to: HIPAA/Compliance, Health System Information Technology, the Information Services Department, and the San Mateo Medical Center. She also serves on the Litigation and Child Protective Services teams.

Upon graduation from law school in 2009, Jennifer clerked for the Honorable Chief Judge Emily C. Hewitt at the United States Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. Following her clerkship, Jennifer served the United States Department of Justice, Commercial Litigation Branch’s Fraud Section through the Honors Program. There, she was responsible for representing the United States government in fraud litigation cases filed under the False Claims Act. Jennifer planned litigation strategy in healthcare and education fraud cases as well as successfully executed investigations which regularly included the coordination of multiple federal agencies. Jennifer assisted in the negotiation of high value settlements in fraud cases against corporate and other private defendants.

Meet the team

Leadership

Finance and Administration

Account Services

Energy Programs

Government Affairs

Regulatory Policy

Marketing and Community Relations

Power Resources

Counsel

About

Resources

Meetings & events

News

SolicitationS

Jan PepperChief Executive Officer

Shawn MarshallChief Operating Officer

Nelly WogbergBoard Clerk, Executive Assistant to the CEO, and Office Manager

Hailey WuAssociate Manager, Financial Planning and Analysis

Kim LeSenior Manager of Data and Technology

Leslie BrownDirector of Account Services

Shayna BarnesOperations Specialist

Masha DoubrovskaiaAccount Services Analyst

Rafael ReyesDirector of Energy Programs

Phillip KobernickPrograms Manager, Transportation

Blake HerrschaftPrograms Manager, Buildings

Peter LevittPrograms Manager, Distributed Energy Resources

Alejandra PosadaAssociate Programs Manager

Marc HershmanDirector of Governmental Affairs

Jeremy WaenDirector of Regulatory Policy

Doug KarpaSenior Regulatory Analyst

Matthew RutherfordSenior Regulatory Analyst

KJ JanowskiDirector of Marketing and Community Relations

Kirsten Andrews-SchwindSenior Manager of Community Relations

Gerald GottheilSenior Manager of Marketing Communications

Sandra BenettiAssociate Manager of Community Relations

Carlos MorenoPrograms Specialist

Michael ArnaldoDigital Marketing Specialist

Vanessa ShinCommunity Outreach Specialist

Sara MaataRenewable Energy and Compliance Analyst

Mehdi ShahriariSenior Renewable Energy Analyst

Sally ChenPower Resources Manager

David SilbermanGeneral Counsel

Jennifer Stalzer Deputy County Counsel