George Burmeister
George Burmeister is the President of the Colorado Energy Group. The group is a customer-focused leading energy advisor to governments, homebuilders, developers, utilities and energy efficiency and renewable energy technology providers and suppliers.
Mr. Burmeister has previously served as a senior political appointee for U.S. President Bill Clinton between 1993 and 1996, and later serving as Communications Director of the Congressionally-created State Energy Advisory Board (STEAB) for the Bush Administration between 2002 and 2004. STEAB provides energy budget guidance to the Administration and Congress.
In 2005, Mr. Burmeister wrote and helped pass his 100th major energy efficiency and/or renewable energy initiative at the local or state government level since 1988—a green building resolution for the City of Commerce, California.
After his political appointment in the Clinton Administration and prior to leaving Washington, Mr. Burmeister served as Policy Director of the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) and Executive Director of Americans for Clean Energy (aka "the Solar Lobby") in Washington before returning home to Colorado in 1999. He helped manage the Energy Program at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) for three years before that, worked for U.S. Senator Timothy E. Wirth (D, CO), was State Political Director for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Sierra Club, and he worked in private sector sales for a West German firm for seven years before that, working out of Breckenridge, Colorado. He has a BA in Environmental Studies with a Minor in Business Administration from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas (1981), and a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from the University of Colorado (1989).
Craig Christensen
Craig Christensen is Principal Engineer and Staff Scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). At NREL, Craig has led various residential energy efficiency research initiatives and programs and new technologies research, including the development of the BEopt building energy simulation and analysis tool.
Craig joined NREL in 1979. He currently leads the Energy Analysis efforts for the Building America Program and supports Solar Buildings research efforts at NREL. A major project is the development of a building energy optimization methodology for use with various existing simulation programs. The resulting software allows automatic optimization of a wide range of energy-related building features and renewable energy systems. Mr. Christensen has also led many projects at NREL related to residential and commercial buildings, active solar systems, passive solar design, energy conservation, and computer modeling of buildings, systems, and components. He originated the concept of the unglazed transpired solar collector at NREL and participated in research which led to an R&D100 Award and Popular Science "Best of What's New" award in 1994.
Prior to joining NREL, Mr. Christensen worked as a solar consultant, individually and in a small mechanical engineering firm. He also worked for 3 years for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as a scientist and officer on oceanographic ships.
A. Y. Ahmed
Abdullah Y Ahmed was the Emerging Technologies Program manager for Sempra Energy Utilities (Southern California Gas Company and San Diego Gas & Electric Company) from 2005 until retirement in 2016. Ahmed managed a $12 million-dollar Emerging Technologies program with the SEU. The goal of the ET program is to evaluate new and emerging energy efficiency gas and energy efficiency and demand response electric technologies. Since taking over the ET program at both utilities, he transformed the group into a pro-active, visionary and goal oriented organization which has conducted field assessments of a large number of lighting, cooling, heating, water heating, controls and process technologies.
From 1989-2005 Ahmed was the president of Occidental Analytical Group, a consulting engineering firm. The company provided professional engineering services to Energy Service Companies and large commercial and industrial clients. The company also provided services to the utility industry in the form of design, planning, implementation and evaluation of third party energy efficiency programs. Ahmed has over 10 years of utility experience and over 25 years of consulting experience in the energy field. Ahmed holds a First-Class Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from Dibrugarh University, India and a Masters Degree in Engineering Management from University of Missouri-Rolla.
Ron Kliewer
Owner of Kliewer And Associates. Kliewer and Associates (K&A’s), have historically and are currently supporting a wide‐variety of EE, DR and other projects under the Emerging Technologies (ET) Program and the Emerging Markets & Technology (EM&T), Codes and Standards (C&S), and other Programs within Southern California Edison.
Kliewer and Associates has extensive project management and project initiation experience supporting statewide utility‐administered Demand Side Management (DSM) programs and others.