Cleantech Trade Pioneer Martin Turock Retires
Cleantech San Diego’s first and longest-serving worker made a transformative influence on the area’s clear power transition
SAN DIEGO, CA, December 6, 2023 – Martin (Marty) Turock, founder and govt director of Cleantech San Diego‘s Southern California Power Innovation Community (SCEIN) has retired from the group after spending 16 years spearheading power effectivity initiatives that catalyzed a whole lot of latest jobs and injected a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} into the area’s cleantech economic system whereas creating financially-viable avenues for cities and colleges to cut back greenhouse gasoline emissions and advance local weather motion targets.
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 sequence of strategic area initiatives designed to speed up adoption of power effectivity and renewable power applied sciences throughout native public businesses and tutorial establishments. These included the Greening San Diego Program, the DOE Power Effectivity & Conservation Block Grant Program, the IRS Clear Renewable Power Bonds Program, the San Diego Regional Road Lighting Working Group, and the San Diego Regional Okay-12 Faculties Sustainability Collaborative, amongst others.
In 2016, Cleantech San Diego was awarded a $5 million grant from the California Power Fee to launch the Southern California Power Innovation Community (SCEIN), one of many state’s 4 innovation clusters. Turock assumed the function of Government Director to design and develop SCEIN as an accelerator program for clear power startups primarily based in San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Imperial counties which are creating applied sciences to assist California meet its clear power targets. This system, which affords free enterprise companies via a consortium of regional accomplice organizations to assist power entrepreneurs efficiently convey their improvements to market, has since grow to be 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 establishing SCEIN with multi-year engagements and customised service plans has led to excellent outcomes for SCEIN member firms and the worldwide repute that it has garnered as one of many prime power innovation clusters within the nation. Because of Marty, SCEIN is making tangible strides in driving an equitable clear power transition for the good thing about all California ratepayers.”
Below Turock’s management of SCEIN, startup firms in this system attracted over $500 million in follow-on funding, representing a tripling of the capital that these firms got here into this system with, and an 80-fold return on funding on this system expenditures supplied by the California Power Fee’s grant. All whereas driving market transformation with new power applied sciences that can allow the state of California to attain its 2045 zero web carbon purpose.
Throughout Turock’s tenure, 73 firms have been served by SCEIN, 36 of that are lively in this system in 2023. Collectively, these startups make use of 812 folks, and have had 469 patents accepted since being accepted into this system. Moreover, 86 p.c of SCEIN firms 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 suitable choice to affix. The extent of professionalism, honest perception in serving to others get forward, and sharing of information has been unmatched in different incubators we’ve 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 we’ve gone from a staff of three to just about 120. Income has grown over 6000% and our merchandise have by no means been extra wanted out there.”
In 2013, Turock launched, and for 9 years led, Cleantech San Diego’s Okay-12 Faculties Sustainability Collaborative, which was established in partnership with SDG&E to assist San Diego County college districts to fund power effectivity retrofits, clear power installations, and the event of power administration capabilities via 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 power effectivity and clear power finest practices throughout the 45 college districts in SDG&E’s service territory. Below Marty’s management, the collaborative course of enabled native Okay-12 colleges to safe $121 million in Proposition 39 grant funding that was used to implement power effectivity and clear power tasks at 528 websites throughout each college district within the county and delivering power financial savings of 48 million kilowatt-hours per yr leading to value financial savings of greater than $11 million yearly – all whereas lowering greenhouse gasoline emissions and making a more healthy studying setting.
From 2009-2012, Turock chaired a Regional Road Lighting Working Group to create a finest apply sharing discussion board for the 18 cities and different public businesses 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 method to cut back the excessive value of streetlighting for municipalities. On the conclusion of the mission, 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 power 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 Power Bonds (CREBs) Program began in 2009, Turock recruited Metropolis of Chula Vista, Metropolis of Lemon Grove, Metropolis of Santee, Santee College District, San Dieguito Union Excessive College District, San Diego State College, and Fallbrook Public Utility District to construct the essential mass to make pursuing CREBs bond incentives Cleantech San Diego’s first true regional authorities/public company clear power 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 accepted 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 businesses.
“Marty has led, impressed, and mentored the Metropolis of Santee for the previous 15 years and has been instrumental in supporting the complete area via many successes,” mentioned Kathy Valverde, Assistant to the Metropolis Supervisor, Metropolis of Santee. “Marty raised our metropolis’s consciousness and curiosity within the essential significance of sustainability tasks for financial, environmental, and social advantages. We’ll 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 area program concentrating on the preliminary deployment of power effectivity and renewable power 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 businesses throughout the San Diego area. The ensuing power 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 power tasks, which motivated lots of the different public businesses throughout the county to develop local weather motion plans and launch power financial savings and decarbonization initiatives.
“Trying again, it was in all probability unrealistic on our half to anticipate anyone particular person to have the option set up and lead an ever-changing group of people and firms via a sequence 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, repeatedly, yr after yr. It’s really wonderful from the vantage level of 2023 to replicate upon every part he has completed.”
“Cleantech San Diego needs Marty the easiest 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 question our neighborhood 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 larger San Diego area as a world chief within the cleantech economic system and sensible 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 embrace greater than 130 companies, universities, governments, and nonprofits dedicated to advancing sustainable options for the good thing about the economic system, the setting, and all members of the neighborhood. Be taught extra at cleantechsandiego.org.
In regards to the Southern California Power Innovation Community
The Southern California Power Innovation Community (SCEIN) is a free incubator program for clear power startups primarily based in San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Imperial counties which are creating applied sciences to assist California meet its local weather targets. This system gives entry to the assets and amenities of regional accomplice organizations and connections with trade with the intention to speed up the commercialization of rising power applied sciences. Managed by Cleantech San Diego, this system is the results of a number of grants from the California Power Fee to assist advance California’s power innovation trade. SCEIN purposes are accepted on a rolling foundation. Anybody involved in making use of as an entrepreneur, turning into a mentor, becoming a member of the Technical Advisory Committee, or internet hosting a pilot demonstration mission, can study extra at cleantechsandiego.org/scein.
Media Contact:
Shannon Bresnahan, Cleantech San Diego, 858-568-7777, shannonb@cleantechsandiego.org
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