Hank Ryan has
been at the center of end
user energy efficiency with over twenty six years of
experience in energy efficient lighting and energy
auditing. He also founded and operated several successful
small businesses over a period of thirty five years. Mr.
Ryan delivers the benefit of long term, experienced based
knowledge of small business issues together with a policy
and field based skill set regarding energy efficiency
opportunities and challenges. He has excelled at combining
long range energy policy innovation strategies together with
dogged persistence and coalition building to gain success on
several fronts.
Mr. Ryan currently
serves as the Executive Director of Small Business
California, a statewide non-profit advocacy organization
(www.smallbusinesscalifornia.org
), and as the Northern California Director of the
Washington D.C. based Center for Small Business and the
Environment. He is a member of the Board of Trustees for
the National Small Business Association, beginning in 2006
through 2009. He recently secured grant funding from the
EPA for Small Business California for the purpose of
nurturing On Bill Financing (OBF), success in California and
other states and is currently working to develop OBF
opportunities in Nevada and Pennsylvania, responding to
utility and legislative interest in those states.
In
2003, he served on the Energy End Use subcommittee of the
Energy Future Coalition, a Washington D.C. based policy
project aimed at developing new
energy policies,
headed by former White House Chief of Staff
John Podesta and Senator Tim Wirth. He is currently the
Executive Director for Small Business California, a 501-c6
non-profit statewide advocacy organization. (www.smallbusinesscalifornia.org
). He also served as an Intervener representing
California small businesses in the CPUC Energy Efficiency
Proceedings on behalf of Small Business California and the
Center for Small Business and the Environment, a Washington
D.C based non-profit organization. (www.aboutcsbe.org,
www.csbefoodservice.com)
Mr. Ryan served, from 2001 to 2003 as
Program and Technical Program Director for the City of San
Francisco's Power Savers Small Business Lighting Program.
In a recent letter sent by Jerry Lawson,
National Manager of the ENERGY STAR Small Business &
Congregations, to the San Francisco Small Business Network
marking the occasion of Mr. Ryan’s receiving the 2004 Small
Business Energy Conservation Advocate of the Year Award, Mr.
Lawson wrote: “Hank’s leadership in analyzing and advocating
the innovative concept of “on bill financing” for small
business energy efficiency investments has moved this issue
to the forefront of California Public Utility Commission
policy formation. He is simultaneously advancing On Bill
Financing nationally with progressive electric utilities and
their consultants.”
From 1971 to 1984, he
founded and operated Small Town Shops, a Northwestern CT
based clothing and gift store currently enjoying its 34th
year in business and co-managed by his daughter, Elizabeth.
In 1985 he designed, built and operated Café de Olla, an 81
seat full service restaurant that won the Connecticut
Magazine’s 1988 “Best New Restaurant” award for Litchfield
County.
From 1980 to 1986, as
an Energy Auditor serving both Northeast Utilities and New
England Electric Company, he performed over 500 energy
audits of residential, commercial and industrial facilities,
covering lighting, motors, HVAC systems, refrigeration and
controls.
From 1981 to 1994, he
founded and ran Firstconserve, a passive solar design firm
and a distributor of commercial and industrial high
efficiency lighting. He initiated independent laboratory
testing in 1988 for compact fluorescent lights working
closely with Michael Siminovitch at LBNL and, in 1990,
created the Polish Sister City Energy Efficiency program
which transported several U.S. energy experts to Milanowek,
Poland and in cooperation with Northeast Utilities, brought
Polish leaders to CT, RI & NY to view options for displacing
the dysfunctional energy related infrastructure there. His
firm placed first in the Northeast Utilities 1990
distributor competition for the highest dollar value of
lighting installations.
Residing in Europe while
attending Uppsala University Law School, Mr. Ryan founded in
1993 and published for three years a monthly newspaper in
Uppsala, Sweden, focused on editorial views of world events.
From 1997 to 2001, he worked with the Alameda Unified School
District as a Program Coordinator with funding from Alameda
Power and Telecom. While working with the District he
developed energy related projects and curriculum, linked the
school district with local utility educational outreach
efforts and was the first to develop compact fluorescent
lighting based fundraising and educational programs.
Several of these programs successfully operate in CA and
around the country today.
Education
Charter Oak College,
Farmington, CT, B. S. Sociology, Honors
Quinnipiac College
School of Law, Uppsala University School of Law
