Meet the 2022 BPACS Keynote Speakers
>> Luke Leung | Amber Mahone | Donnel Baird
Bio: Luke is a LEED Fellow; a member of ASHRAE COVID19 task force; AIA Task Force on COVID-19; Chair of “Environmental Health Committee”; Member, Expert Peer Review Committee for Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat; Former Board of Directors for USGBC, Illinois; Former Chairman of ASHRAE Technical Committee on “Tall Buildings”; ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer; Industrial Professional Advisory Council Pennsylvania State University Architectural Engineering School; Industry Advisory Board for IN2 start-up incubator program with National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He is the wide firm Director of the Sustainability Engineering Studio for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP. His work includes Burj Khalifa, the current world’s tallest building, and other four of the top 20 tallest buildings in the world. Other work also included General Motors Global Headquarters, Beijing Finance Street, US Census Bureau, BBVA Tower in Mexico City, LG Art Hall in Seoul Korea, etc.
Bio: Amber Mahone leads E3’s Clean Energy practice area, which specializes in analyzing and modeling longterm greenhouse gas reduction strategies in the energy economy, including a focus on building electrification and future of natural gas questions. She has led California’s analysis of greenhouse gas reduction strategies and worked on similar projects focusing on the Northwest, New York, New England, and the entire U.S. E3’s Clean Energy practice brings an inter-disciplinary approach to energy analysis, weaving together E3’s strengths in electricity planning and markets with a broader, economy-wide perspective on how the transportation, buildings, and industrial sectors may evolve over time. Ms. Mahone’s expertise ranges from renewable integration, to transportation and building efficiency and electrification, to biofuels and emerging low-carbon technologies. Over the course of the past 15 years at E3, Ms. Mahone has also worked in electricity resource planning, energy efficiency cost-effectiveness, and non-wires alternatives analysis. Her clients include many of the California state energy agencies and utilities, as well as utilities and commissions across the U.S. Ms. Mahone holds an M.P.A. from Princeton University and a B.A. in International Relations from Wellesley College.
Bio: Donnel Baird is the founder of BlocPower, a climate tech startup based in Brooklyn. BlocPower’s tech platform analyzes, finances, and installs clean energy and building decarbonization upgrades in buildings in underserved communities. BlocPower creates jobs for qualified local low-income workers, energy savings for building owners, reduces carbon emissions and asthma rates, and provides financial returns to investors. In 2021, the company announced a historic partnership with Ithaca, New York to decarbonize 100% of the city’s buildings—the first such project in the United States.
BlocPower is backed by Kapor Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Eric and Wendy Schmidt, the American Family Institute for social and environmental impact, and Salesforce. Baird is a graduate of Duke University and Columbia Business School, where he was a recipient of the Board of Overseers Fellowship and a recipient of investment from the Lang Fund for Entrepreneurial Initiatives. He spent four years as a political and community organizer, and more than two years managing a national initiative to leverage American Reinvestment and
Recovery Act energy efficiency investments in underserved communities. He sits on various boards including the New York Federal Reserve Bank Advisory Board. Baird lives in New Jersey with his wife, and children.