Through the Noise

Join Ernesto as he sits down with Gareth Evans, the CEO and Founder of VECKTA, a groundbreaking software platform and marketplace designed to optimize onsite energy solutions. Listen as Gareth shares his vision for the future of energy, the challenges and opportunities in the industry, and how VECKTA empowers companies to achieve energy independence and sustainability. Gareth's time in Iraq following the Gulf War set his mission in motion; it opened his eyes to a world without access to reliable energy and other essentials needed to survive. He saw the impact that can have on the stability of a region and the health and success of businesses and communities. Driven by this experience, he committed himself to finding solutions that create profitable and sustainable energy outcomes so we can all thrive. VECKTA modernizes and streamlines how companies buy onsite energy systems. 

Join Ernesto as he talks with Shaun Frankson, co-founder of Plastic Bank, who shares what it's like running a business that impacts billions of people on this planet by turning plastic waste into currency. Plastic Bank empowers the Social Recycling movement that stops ocean plastic and helps alleviate poverty.  

Join Ernesto as he goes behind the scenes with Off_JaWaggon, a YouTuber quickly rising in popularity with his raw opinions surrounding politics and life on the farm in rural Minnesota. You will hear about the challenges and what actually goes into creating digital content that gets large numbers of views on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok.   Off_JaWaggon is a Youtuber and Content Creator who discusses life on the farm in rural Minnesota, politics, and his own raw opinions gaining him popularity on platforms such as TikTok and Youtube  

Mark Fastoso from Mark's Game Room takes you behind the scenes sharing everything from researching his ideas, to the preparation, and even the best practices for making his videos that have gained him a large number of views in a very short period of time.  Mark Fastoso, is a multiple Emmy® and Edward R. Murrow award-winning producer with more than twenty years experience working for PBS, Curiosity Stream, History Hit and other digital platforms. Mark has extensive experience in creating highly interactive programming using the most current technologies in broadcast and on the web. Currently, Mark's current PBS project, Yellowhammer History Hunt, is proving to be very successful on PBS Learning Media with many videos achieving a 90+% completion rate.  

Have you ever considered the concept of an electric plane? Join Ernesto in this exciting episode as he sits down with Gregory Davis, President & CEO of Eviation Aircraft, as they dive into the groundbreaking achievement of creating the world's first all-electric commuter aircraft. Eviation Aircraft builds electric airplanes using advanced technology and design. It was founded in 2015 and is based in Arlington, Washington. Their mission is to build beautiful electric airplanes using advanced technology and impeccable design, imagined and built by a committed and expert workforce. 

Farzad Mesbahi is a YouTube content creator primarily focused on technology and its impact on our future. He's an entrepreneur, worked at Tesla for 4 years as a Program Manager, and was a Director of Business Intelligence and Pricing at the largest Pet Food Distributor in the United States, Phillips Pet Food and Supplies.

Josiah Hunt, CEO of Pacific Biochar Benefit Corporation, has had a career focus on biochar since 2009, helping pioneer methods of biochar production, processing, use in agriculture, and associated carbon accounting during these years. Pacific Biochar Benefit Corporation is a biochar producer and distributor with a focus on climate change mitigation and long-term soil fertility improvements.

Climate change is accelerating, and Brennan Spellacy has built a platform that could exponentially scale our efforts to reverse its effects. He's the CEO and co-founder of Patch, the platform for climate action. Backed by some of the world's most visionary investors, he's figured out how businesses can make bold, impactful climate action a reality with every transaction — with just four simple lines of code. Patch is the platform for negative emissions. Businesses can leverage their API to programmatically calculate their emissions and make any transaction climate positive.

As the President and CEO of Sentient Jet, Andrew Collins is responsible for a $450 million consumer travel and aviation business that has rapidly flourished over the last six years. Under his leadership, the company has benefited from both a digital and business model transformation, in addition to an organizational restructuring.  Founded in 1999 and now an integral part of Directional Aviation, Sentient Jet, inventor of the jet card, is one of the leading private aviation companies in the country. 

Jean-Francois Gauthier is a mechanical engineer, lifelong space geek, and the Vice-President of Measurements and Strategic Initiatives at GHGSat.  GHGSat provides actionable greenhouse gas emissions data and insights to businesses, governments, financial markets, and regulators worldwide. 

Tony Pan is the co-founder and CEO of Modern Electron. He is an inventor on 250+ patents pending, and has been named to Forbes 30 under 30, MIT Technology Review Innovators under 35, and Business Journal 40 under 40. Modern Electron is a cleantech company that develops new technologies for energy efficiency, resilience, and hydrogen. 

Scott Nguyen is CEO of Bodhi Solar and a Fellow at the University of Texas Energy Institute. Scott has 15 years of energy industry experience, 18 USPTO patents, and a PhD in Physics from Harvard University. Bodhi software platform empowers residential solar companies to deliver amazing customer experiences. Find Scott Nguyen's previous episode here.

Tesla got cut from the S&P 500 ESG Index. What? Jason Howell comes back to step us through the world of ESG and what's going on with Tesla and the S&P ruckus. Jason also informed us about the SEC's open for public comment meeting on ESG's Sunshine Act Notice. That should be a fun one! https://www.sec.gov/os/sunshine-act-notices/sunshine-act-notice-open-052522 Jason Howell is a Certified Financial Planner™ and Chartered SRI Counselor™ professional. He is also a professor, author, former US Congressional Candidate, and a Top Wealth Adviser by Washingtonian Magazine. Jason Howell Company is a family wealth management firm that uses Sustainable Responsible Impact investing strategies to develop community stakeholders. Click here for Jason Howell's previous episode.

Stefan Koester is a senior policy analyst with the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation where he focuses on clean energy innovation and climate change policy. He has a background in energy and environmental policy and has worked on carbon pricing, corporate sustainability, energy efficiency, electricity markets, and issues related to the electric power sector and renewable energy at the state, regional, and federal levels.  ITIF is a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank with a mission to formulate, evaluate, and promote policy solutions that accelerate innovation and boost productivity to spur growth, opportunity, and progress. 

John Belizaire's parents escaped Haitian dictatorship and potential death before reuniting and coming to the United States. Since the age of 14 selling floppy discs in high school, John has had an entrepreneurial spirit and interest in technology. He was a recipient of the Intel Scholarship Program and he went on to receive a computer science and engineering degree from Cornell University. When he was 28 years old, he sold his first start-up company for $150 million. He has gone on to become a versatile CEO and serial entrepreneur who has successfully founded and scaled several multi-million dollar technology and fintech companies. He is currently the CEO of Soluna, a computing company helping to shape the future of renewable energy development. His expertise as both a highly effective business leader and technology strategist has enabled his new venture and operational success steering complex initiatives from concept to funding to launch to growth. Soluna Computing builds modular, scalable data centers that convert wasted renewable energy into computing power for intensive, batchable applications such as cryptocurrency mining, AI, and machine learning.

Tony Pan is the co-founder and CEO of Modern Electron. He is an inventor on 250+ patents pending, and has been named to Forbes 30 under 30, MIT Technology Review Innovators under 35, and Business Journal 40 under 40. Modern Electron is a sustainable heat and power technology company that helps building owners and homeowners save money, reduce carbon emissions, and increase resiliency during power outages.

Daniel Brooks is a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Linnean Society of London, and a Research Fellow of the Manter Laboratory of Parasitology, University of Nebraska State Museum. He has been working for the past decade as a free-lance consultant on the evolutionary biology of climate change and emerging disease. He is also an author of The Stockholm Paradigm, which we discussed in his first episode, during the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown. In his second episode, we discussed the COVID-19 vaccine. The Stockholm Paradigm The crisis of emerging disease has been a century and a half in the making. Human, veterinary and crop health practitioners convinced themselves that disease could be controlled by medicating the sick, vaccinating those at risk, and eradicating the parts of the biosphere responsible for disease transmission. Most climate scientists made no connection between climate changes and disease. Evolutionary biologists assured themselves that coevolution between pathogens and hosts provided a firewall against disease emergence by pathogens moving to new hosts. None of those traditional perspectives anticipated the onslaught of emerging infectious diseases confronting humanity. A new understanding of the evolution of pathogen-host systems, called the Stockholm Paradigm, explains what is happening. The planet is a minefield of pathogens with pre-existing capacity to infect susceptible but unexposed hosts, needing only the opportunity to come into contact with them. Climate change has always been the major catalyst for such new opportunities, through disrupting local ecosystem structure and allowing pathogens and hosts to move to new ecosystems. Once pathogens expand to new hosts, novel pathogen variants may emerge, each with new capacities to infect hosts. Mathematical models and real-world examples uniformly support the conceptual framework. Emerging disease is thus one of the climate change-related threat multipliers confronting humanity. The universe of risk is thus enormous and climate change is the trigger - time is short, danger is great, we are unprepared. Even without deadly global catastrophes of the scale of the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic, emerging diseases cost humanity more than a trillion dollars per year in treatment and lost productivity. The Stockholm Paradigm also offers hope. Embodied in the DAMA (document, assess, monitor, act) protocol, we can “anticipate to mitigate” emerging disease, buying time and saving money while we search for more effective ways to cope with this challenge.

Amaury is an entrepreneur and business executive with past experiences in financial consultancy and business development. Zéphyr & Borée is a shipping company specialized in delivering low carbon fret transport solutions using wind-propelled merchant ships. Recognized to have developed in partnership with JIFMAR and AYRO the Canopée vessel : first modern wind-propelled ship of 120 meters being built currently in Europe and that will be dedicated to carry the satellite launchers of ArianeGroup from Europe to French Guiana.

Lizzy is a Carbon Accounting Lead at Emitwise. She works with Emitwise's customers to provide the most accurate picture of a company's carbon footprint, so that effective reduction strategies can be implemented. A Chartered Accountant, she began her career at PwC, working in Assurance, where she specialized in Sustainability Assurance. Emitwise is a tech company that enables large organizations to measure, report and reduce the carbon footprint of their operations and supply chains - all done through the Emitwise platform.

Infinited Fiber Company CEO and co-founder Petri Alava is a business developer and strategist with over 15 years of CEO experience in both the B2B and B2C environments. He is an expert in waste management, and was already pioneering circular initiatives before the concept was widely understood. Infinited Fiber Company's technology stops waste from being wasted by turning discarded textiles into brand-new Infinna™ fibers that look and feel soft and natural like cotton and can be used to create the whole range of fashion items from jeans and hoodies to blouses, dresses and more.

Dr. Francis Wang serves as the Chief Executive Officer for NanoGraf Technologies, a leading advanced materials company in the energy storage space. He brings over 20 years of experience in technology innovation and commercialization in the energy storage and clean energy industries. NanoGraf is an advanced battery material company whose patented silicon-anode technology enables longer-lasting, higher-energy, and higher-power lithium-ion batteries.

David Jackson is the Director of Marketing and Public Affairs at Winnow. He is a marketing professional of over 15 years working with brands like The Guardian, American Express, and NGOs like Shelter and WaterAid. Winnow develops Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to help chefs in large businesses like hotels, contracting caterers, casinos, and cruise ships to run more profitable and sustainable kitchens by cutting food waste in half.

Araz is Co-founder and CTO of Kayhan Space. He has over 10 years of experience in technology and analytics working for startups, as well as Fortune 500 companies. Kayhan Space is a software analytics platform focused on space domain awareness capabilities including identifying potential collision threats and automating collision avoidance maneuvers to make spaceflight safer.

Chris Stern is a cleantech entrepreneur and consultant. He is co-founder and CEO of CarbiCrete. CarbiCrete is a carbon removal technology company whose patented process enables the production of cement-free, carbon-negative concrete.  

Tara Gupta is an artist and entrepreneur focused on creating systems-oriented solutions, and the founder of Map-Collective and Anamakos. Map-Collective is a carbon tracking and supply chain transparency platform, providing a unified data hub for carbon data. Anamakos is a regenerative real estate development company, focused on implementing circular economy principles in design and construction of residential building, and stimulating a biophilic transition.

Arcady Sosinov is the Founder and CEO of FreeWire Technologies, a leader in electric vehicle (EV) charging and power solutions. Prior to founding FreeWire, Arcady spent almost a decade in finance and investment management, most recently at GMO and prior to that, BNY Mellon. Arcady holds an MBA from UC Berkeley and an economics degree from Boston University. FreeWire's turnkey power solutions make it possible for ultrafast EV charging to be ubiquitous, delivering reliable electrification at the grid edge with integrated energy storage systems that provide fast charging for EVs and resilient power alternatives for site hosts, including Fortune 100 companies, commercial customers, fleets operators, and retail locations.

Before starting Analytical Flavor Systems, Jason was the Founder and Executive Director of The Tea Institute at Penn State, which oversees 20+ researchers in 5 fields of study in traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Tea. Jason did his research in sensory science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence - eventually developing the Gastrograph system after 3 1/2 years of research. Gastrograph AI is an artificial intelligence platform for modeling human sensory perception to predict consumer preference of flavor, aroma, and texture.

Apoorv Bhargava, CEO and Co-founder of WeaveGrid, has dedicated his career to furthering innovation in the climate and energy sectors including prior work at Opower and NRG, as well as in management consulting and venture capital in the climate space. Apoorv holds an MBA and an MS from Stanford University, and graduated from Rice University with a B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a B.A. in Economics. WeaveGrid's cloud-based software enables low-cost, hardware-agnostic vehicle grid integration that transforms electric vehicles into valuable assets for utility companies, supporting rapid transport electrification at scale.

I am the Founder and CEO of Globechain. My passion is to prove that a business with its foundation structured on the principle of being commercial with a conscience can grow to become a global company, generating revenue, doing good AND offering infinite possibilities to those who use it. Globechain is an ESG reuse marketplace that connects enterprises with non-profits, small businesses, and people to redistribute unneeded items, reduce waste, and optimise assets through internal and external reuse and loan, generating ESG data on the impact.

Dr. Francis Wang serves as the Chief Executive Officer for NanoGraf Technologies, a leading advanced materials company in the energy storage space. He brings over 20 years of experience in technology innovation and commercialization in the energy storage and clean energy industries. NanoGraf is an advanced battery material company whose patented silicon-anode technology enables longer-lasting, higher-energy, and higher-power lithium-ion batteries.

Rob Writz is director of commercial partnerships for AMP Robotics; his professional career has focused on the intersection of software with the circular economy and safety. Before joining AMP in 2016, Writz was a product manager for Intrado (acquired by West), worked in technology commercialization at The Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and led the Cleantech Practice at Innosphere, Colorado's seed fund and incubator for science-based startups. AMP Robotics is a pioneer and leader in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and infrastructure for the waste and recycling industry.

Andy Straisfeld is the Co-Founder and VP of Business Development for Lifecycle Revive and has devoted himself full-time to reducing and recycling post-Covid waste, since 2020. Lina Bowden is a Partner with Carmina de Young and part of the team bringing the Lifecycle PPE initiative to life. For the past 10 years Lina has devoted her energy to a number of social enterprises, helping them create community and environmental impacts. She also is the catalyst behind VERGE Capital, an impact-focused loan fund. Lifecycle Revive is a sustainable PPE supply chain and Canada's first circular economy-based industry on used medical textiles. Lifecycle takes medical waste, reduces it to plastic pellets, and transforms it into new PPE products. They are working with 12 other companies to recycle PPE worldwide.

In her role as Executive Director for the newly established nonprofit, Building Transparency, Stacy Smedley leads the continued management and development of the free, open-access Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) tool and works to educate and engage the building industry on actionably reducing embodied carbon emissions of building materials. Building Transparency is a 501(c) nonprofit organization that provides open access data and tools that support broad and swift action across the building industry in addressing embodied carbon’s role in climate change.

Petroleum engineer and energy consultant Ian Palmer has worked for BP, Los Alamos, The Department of Energy, Oral Roberts University, and Higgs-Palmer Technologies. His book The Shale Controversy details the pros and cons of fracking.

Andy Sweetman is the Sales & Marketing Director at Futamura EMEA, he is also Chairman of the UK based BBIA (Biobased and Biodegradable Industries Association). Futamura is a world leading manufacturer of renewable and compostable cellulose packaging films.

Jason Howell is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and Chartered SRI Counselor™ professional. He is also a professor, author, former US Congressional Candidate and a Top Wealth Adviser by WASHINGTONIAN magazine. Jason Howell Company is a family wealth management firm that uses Sustainable Responsible Impact investing strategies to develop community stakeholders.

Lisa Conway serves as VP of Sustainability at Interface – the global flooring manufacturer that is leading industry to love the world – and is passionate about bringing awareness to the interconnectedness of environmental sustainability and human health. To drive understanding around the impact of carbon on human health, Lisa and her team provide educational programming on the need for transparency and prioritization of embodied carbon in specifications within the building industry.  Interface is a worldwide commercial flooring company and global leader in sustainability. For sustainable home flooring by Interface, visit www.flor.com

At The Recycling Partnership, Ali Blandina brings her deep experience and passion for developing innovative strategies, building collaborative partnerships, and catalyzing change to her role as Director of Circular Ventures. Ali leads many initiatives including The Partnership’s Pathway to Circularity, which enables stakeholders to successfully understand circular packaging challenges, solutions, and actions – turning thought leadership into action leadership in building a circular economy. The Recycling Partnership is the lead action agent catalyzing the circular economy in the U.S., working with communities, brands, and other aligned organizations to transform recycling for good.

Nate Storey leads science and innovation for Plenty’s cutting-edge vertical farm technologies. He has extensive experience in plant production and equipment design, and drives Plenty’s ground-breaking plant science to deliver industry leading yields of delicious fresh fruits and vegetables. Prior to Plenty, he founded Bright Agrotech, an agriculture company that created hardware, software and services to advance the indoor and vertical agriculture industries. Nate received his Ph.D. in Agronomy from the University of Wyoming with an emphasis in vertical plane hydroponic production. He also received his Bachelor’s and Masters of Science degrees in Agriculture Science from the University of Wyoming. Plenty is the only scalable indoor vertical farm that can grow multiple crops on one platform with superior flavors and yield. Its mission is to improve the health of people, plants, and our planet.

David Beurle is a globally renowned expert on Future Thinking and Trends within Governments, Corporations, Industry, Regions and Communities. He is also CEO of Future iQ. Future iQ is a global research and consulting company specialising in foresight and scenario-based strategic planning. Future iQ, has just hosted the follow up virtual consultation to the successful Future of Urban Living consultation, held in December 2018 at St George’s House in the grounds of Windsor Castle. The virtual consultation (Jan 22nd 2021) engaged 30 global experts around issues pertinent to society and the Future of Urban Living post pandemic. These include: Evolving Social Fabric, Distribution of Power and Influence, Demographic Distribution and Movement and Mobility. Experts were invited to take part.

Caroli Buitenhuis is a bioplastics and packaging expert and founder of Green Serendipity. She has an award winning track record in the fields of bioplastics, circular packaging and the development of innovative circular concepts and strategies. Green Serendipity is an international consultancy for advice on bioplastics for packaging and products. Located in the Bioplastics Hub in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Scott Nguyen is CEO of 17TeraWatts and a Fellow at the University of Texas Energy Institute. Scott has 15 years of energy industry experience, 18 USPTO patents, and a PhD in Physics from Harvard University. 17TeraWatts' Bodhi software platform empowers residential solar companies to deliver amazing customer experiences.

Daniel Brooks is a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Linnean Society of London, and a Research Fellow of the Manter Laboratory of Parasitology, University of Nebraska State Museum. He has been working for the past decade as a free-lance consultant on the evolutionary biology of climate change and emerging disease. He is also an author of The Stockholm Paradigm, which we discussed in his first episode, during the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown. Find his last episode here.

David Beurle is a globally renowned expert on Future Thinking and Trends within Governments, Corporations, Industry, Regions and Communities. He is also CEO of Future iQ. Future iQ is a global research and consulting company specializing in foresight and scenario-based strategic planning.

Wendy Owens is the founder and CEO of Hexas Biomass Inc. and combines her background in materials engineering and biotech to lead Hexas to help the world achieve a more sustainable future through plant-based raw materials. Wendy is a published author and a former cabinet-level advisor to two US administrations. Hexas Biomass is a biomaterials company that sells raw and pre-processed, plant-based materials as substitutes for wood and fossil fuel-based raw materials in multiple applications.

As part of the 3rd generation, Scott Attman, Vice President of Acme Paper & Supply, has spent 23 years growing his family’s 74 year distribution company focusing on providing innovative and sustainable solutions to clients in various verticals ranging from fast casual restaurants to caterers, stadiums to hotels, and commercial office building to government facilities. When Scott is not working, he enjoys enjoying the vibrant Washington DC restaurant scene, coaching his children’s sports teams, and skiing. He resides in the Maryland suburbs outside of Washington DC with his wife Donna and their 3 children. Acme Paper is a distribution organization that services clients throughout the greater Mid-Atlantic Region with 5 divisions, Restaurant Equipment and smallwares, disposable foodservice packaging, facilities and hygiene solutions, industrial packaging, and custom retail packaging.

Michael Gips is an attorney, security professional, business executive, and journalist. Frequently cited in both security literature and the mainstream press, Mike has written more than 1,000 articles on all aspects of security and has presented at scores of conferences, webcasts, and other events. Global Insights in Professional Security (GIPS), LLC, provides thought leadership, security strategy, content strategy, and content to corporate security departments, professional associations and NGOs, and security service and product providers.   Every so often, Ernesto Gluecksmann and Mickey Panayiotakis sit down and talk about digital security, new software, technologies, trends, regulations that may impact leaders of organizations. Listen to their Insights on this segment of Through The Noise.