After a long Labor Day weekend, I’m back to the grind here in Silicon Valley. Okay, well I did not take the whole weekend off. I was prepping for the filming today of two new television shows in my series of shows Silicon Valley - Technology, Art, Green and Sustainability.
After a day of three meetings on Tuesday the 8th of September, there was another interesting USGBC-NCC Silicon Valley Branch meeting. Our SV Branch of the US Green Building Council always meets the 2nd Tuesday night of every month. This month our topic was “Leaders of Silicon Valley. Our panel of speakers consisted of Kevin Surace from Serious Materials, Carl Gaurdino from Silicon Valley Leadership Group and Abe Yokell from Rock Port Capital.
All three men had very interesting and unique perspectives on what is happening in Silicon Valley. All agreed that clean tech, green jobs and innovations here in the Bay Area (Silicon Valley to the rest of the world) is where the economy is going to keystone, or paddle back to life from this economic crisis.
Kevin’s opening, some said was almost like a sales pitch, with video clips of Obama talking to the world about what Serious Materials is doing and how it’s a model company. In the video you see Kevin standing on stage with Obama, walking through towns with workings and you see flashes of ribbon cutting ceremonies at various plants that Serious Materials has purchased. They made these purchases and saved hundreds of jobs around the US from leaving our boarders and from those factories closing down completely- forever!
Yes, it was little salesman like of Kevin, but hell, why should it not be- tell the world what they are doing and hope that others will follow in their footsteps. (We can hope so at least!)
Next up, Carl Gaurdino spoke on Silicon Valley Leadership Group and the 4 basic rules that they have: 1) Define victory, 2) Determine Strategies, 3) Detail steps and 4) Don’t forget to have fun! Yes theses are the four D’s that Carl bases his decisions on. The programs that have been started by SVLG are pretty amazing. If you have not heard of Sustainable Silicon Valley, it was formed with the help of SVLG. A fun event that was started more then four years ago by SVLG is the CEO bike to work challenge that this year in May got 80,000 workers biking to work all on one day. The CEO’s that took part in this had areas set up to reward the bikers, with parties, prizes and celebrations that encouraged everyone to partake in the event. The smog on that day in the Bay Area was for sure lower!
Last up, was Abe Yokell and I have to say that many women were whispering in the room, "is he single???" This guy is not only smart, but a hunk- (can I say that-oh yeah-I’m not reporting to any boss, just me!). He is a transplant from Boston and has been working with Rockport for many years and many-many millions of dollars invested into start-ups. One you might of heard of lately- Solyndra that is another company paving the way for a green economy!
There was a Q &A session and then our monthly meeting was complete. At the start of every meeting there is an hour of networking with some facilities hosts giving us a tour of their LEED building. Tonight we had a review of SAP’s sustainability practices and then we were right into the meeting.
So, for the details of this event, to hear the full from start to end and all the information relayed at the meeting, you will have to watch my show on Monday’s at 7:00pm in San Jose or Campbell Comcast channel 15. If you do not live in California in one of those cities, you can watch online at www.creatvSJ.org
