Cleantech Business Pioneer Martin Turock Retires
Cleantech San Diego’s first and longest-serving worker made a transformative impression on the area’s clear vitality transition
SAN DIEGO, CA, December 6, 2023 – Martin (Marty) Turock, founder and govt director of Cleantech San Diego‘s Southern California Vitality Innovation Community (SCEIN) has retired from the group after spending 16 years spearheading vitality effectivity initiatives that catalyzed lots of of recent jobs and injected lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} into the area’s cleantech financial system whereas creating financially-viable avenues for cities and faculties to cut back greenhouse gasoline emissions and advance local weather motion objectives.
Turock was the primary and longest-serving worker of regional trade affiliation Cleantech San Diego. Throughout his tenure with Cleantech San Diego, he led a collection of strategic discipline initiatives designed to speed up adoption of vitality effectivity and renewable vitality applied sciences throughout native public companies and tutorial establishments. These included the Greening San Diego Program, the DOE Vitality Effectivity & Conservation Block Grant Program, the IRS Clear Renewable Vitality Bonds Program, the San Diego Regional Avenue Lighting Working Group, and the San Diego Regional Okay-12 Colleges Sustainability Collaborative, amongst others.
In 2016, Cleantech San Diego was awarded a $5 million grant from the California Vitality Fee to launch the Southern California Vitality Innovation Community (SCEIN), one of many state’s 4 innovation clusters. Turock assumed the position of Government Director to design and develop SCEIN as an accelerator program for clear vitality startups primarily based in San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Imperial counties which are creating applied sciences to assist California meet its clear vitality objectives. This system, which presents free enterprise companies by means of a consortium of regional companion organizations to assist vitality entrepreneurs efficiently carry their improvements to market, has since develop into the flagship initiative of Cleantech San Diego for the previous seven years.
“Marty was the apparent option to launch and lead this program,” mentioned Cleantech San Diego President and CEO Jason Anderson. “Marty’s imaginative and prescient and perception in organising SCEIN with multi-year engagements and customised service plans has led to excellent outcomes for SCEIN member corporations and the worldwide status that it has garnered as one of many prime vitality innovation clusters within the nation. Due to Marty, SCEIN is making tangible strides in driving an equitable clear vitality transition for the good thing about all California ratepayers.”
Beneath Turock’s management of SCEIN, startup corporations in this system attracted over $500 million in follow-on funding, representing a tripling of the capital that these corporations got here into this system with, and an 80-fold return on funding on this system expenditures supplied by the California Vitality Fee’s grant. All whereas driving market transformation with new vitality applied sciences that can allow the state of California to realize its 2045 zero web carbon aim.
Throughout Turock’s tenure, 73 corporations have been served by SCEIN, 36 of that are energetic in this system in 2023. Collectively, these startups make use of 812 folks, and have had 469 patents authorised since being accepted into this system. Moreover, 86 p.c of SCEIN corporations have feminine, minority, or veteran illustration on their C-Suite management groups.
“Marty was the primary member of the SCEIN and Cleantech San Diego staff that UCAP Energy met. From the preliminary go to, we knew that it was the proper determination to affix. The extent of professionalism, honest perception in serving to others get forward, and sharing of data has been unmatched in different incubators now we have been a member of,” mentioned UCAP Energy President and CEO Gordon Schenk. “As a small startup, UCAP Energy joined SCEIN in July of 2020. A tricky time to do enterprise with the pandemic simply beginning, however with Marty’s and SCEIN help, UCAP Energy has been very profitable since that early starting. After becoming a member of SCEIN now we have gone from a staff of three to almost 120. Income has grown over 6000% and our merchandise have by no means been extra wanted available in the market.”
In 2013, Turock launched, and for 9 years led, Cleantech San Diego’s Okay-12 Colleges Sustainability Collaborative, which was established in partnership with SDG&E to assist San Diego County faculty districts to fund vitality effectivity retrofits, clear vitality installations, and the event of vitality administration capabilities by means of Proposition 39 funds. The initiative made the San Diego area a prime winner of those funds by expediting the method and fostering the sharing of vitality effectivity and clear vitality greatest practices throughout the 45 faculty districts in SDG&E’s service territory. Beneath Marty’s management, the collaborative course of enabled native Okay-12 faculties to safe $121 million in Proposition 39 grant funding that was used to implement vitality effectivity and clear vitality tasks at 528 websites throughout each faculty district within the county and delivering vitality financial savings of 48 million kilowatt-hours per yr leading to price financial savings of greater than $11 million yearly – all whereas lowering greenhouse gasoline emissions and making a more healthy studying surroundings.
From 2009-2012, Turock chaired a Regional Avenue Lighting Working Group to create a greatest follow sharing discussion board for the 18 cities and different public companies within the SDG&E service territory to share key learnings that will speed up the retrofit of the area’s high- and low-pressure sodium streetlights to induction and LED fixtures as an environmentally pleasant approach to scale back the excessive price of streetlighting for municipalities. On the conclusion of the venture, 15 cities and San Diego County had made commitments to retrofit greater than 75,000 streetlights for a financial savings of $4 million in annual taxpayer financial savings along with vitality financial savings of 30 million kilowatt-hours per yr and a discount of regional greenhouse gasoline emissions by 18,720,000 kilos.
For the IRS Clear Renewable Vitality Bonds (CREBs) Program began in 2009, Turock recruited Metropolis of Chula Vista, Metropolis of Lemon Grove, Metropolis of Santee, Santee Faculty District, San Dieguito Union Excessive Faculty District, San Diego State College, and Fallbrook Public Utility District to construct the crucial mass to make pursuing CREBs bond incentives Cleantech San Diego’s first true regional authorities/public company clear vitality strategic initiative. As a part of this system, Marty leveraged relationships with native contractors to offer professional bono engineering signoffs required for every of the CREBs purposes. The endeavor resulted in 192 photo voltaic PV tasks authorised for $155 million in CREBs bonds for the San Diego area, representing 19 p.c of the nationwide allocation and jump-starting photo voltaic PV deployment for 9 San Diego authorities companies.
“Marty has led, impressed, and mentored the Metropolis of Santee for the previous 15 years and has been instrumental in supporting the complete area by means of many successes,” mentioned Kathy Valverde, Assistant to the Metropolis Supervisor, Metropolis of Santee. “Marty raised our metropolis’s consciousness and curiosity within the crucial significance of sustainability tasks for financial, environmental, and social advantages. We are going to proceed to be impressed by and profit from Marty’s work and our partnership with him.”
In 2007, Turock launched Cleantech San Diego’s first strategic discipline program concentrating on the preliminary deployment of vitality effectivity and renewable vitality tasks with the Metropolis of Santee and the Metropolis of Lemon Grove to validate the financial, social, and environmental advantages of these tasks and set an instance for different public companies throughout the San Diego area. The ensuing vitality effectivity retrofits and photo voltaic photovoltaic (PV) tasks have been the primary deployments in San Diego County’s authorities company sector, and people early successes validated the triple backside line advantages of unpolluted vitality tasks, which motivated lots of the different public companies throughout the county to develop local weather motion plans and launch vitality financial savings and decarbonization initiatives.
“Wanting again, it was in all probability unrealistic on our half to count on anyone particular person to give you the option set up and lead an ever-changing group of people and corporations by means of a collection of very totally different, and principally untested, tasks, pilots, and implementations,” mentioned Cleantech San Diego Co-Founder Jim Waring. “But Marty efficiently pulled it off, again and again, yr after yr. It’s actually superb from the vantage level of 2023 to replicate upon every thing he has completed.”
“Cleantech San Diego needs Marty the perfect in his retirement and extends our deepest thanks for his years of top-notch collegiality and unwavering ardour in help of our group, our members, and the complete cleantech trade,” mentioned Anderson. “There’s little doubt our group will proceed to really feel the monumental impacts of his life’s work for a really very long time to return.”
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About Cleantech San Diego
Cleantech San Diego is a member-based enterprise affiliation that positions the better San Diego area as a worldwide chief within the cleantech financial system and good cities motion. As a nonprofit group, Cleantech San Diego is uniquely suited to help the trade by fostering collaborations throughout the private-public-academic panorama, main advocacy efforts to advertise cleantech priorities, and inspiring extra equitable funding throughout the San Diego area. Stakeholders embody greater than 130 companies, universities, governments, and nonprofits dedicated to advancing sustainable options for the good thing about the financial system, the surroundings, and all members of the group. Study extra at cleantechsandiego.org.
Concerning the Southern California Vitality Innovation Community
The Southern California Vitality Innovation Community (SCEIN) is a free incubator program for clear vitality startups primarily based in San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Imperial counties which are creating applied sciences to assist California meet its local weather objectives. This system offers entry to the sources and amenities of regional companion organizations and connections with trade as a way to speed up the commercialization of rising vitality applied sciences. Managed by Cleantech San Diego, this system is the results of a number of grants from the California Vitality Fee to assist advance California’s vitality innovation trade. SCEIN purposes are accepted on a rolling foundation. Anybody enthusiastic about making use of as an entrepreneur, changing into a mentor, becoming a member of the Technical Advisory Committee, or internet hosting a pilot demonstration venture, can study extra at cleantechsandiego.org/scein.
Media Contact:
Shannon Bresnahan, Cleantech San Diego, 858-568-7777, shannonb@cleantechsandiego.org
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