Cleantech Trade Pioneer Martin Turock Retires
Cleantech San Diego’s first and longest-serving worker made a transformative influence 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 Power Innovation Community (SCEIN) has retired from the group after spending 16 years spearheading vitality effectivity initiatives that catalyzed a whole lot of latest jobs and injected a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars} into the area’s cleantech financial system whereas creating financially-viable avenues for cities and faculties to scale back greenhouse gasoline emissions and advance local weather motion objectives.
Turock was the primary and longest-serving worker of regional business affiliation Cleantech San Diego. Throughout his tenure with Cleantech San Diego, he led a sequence of strategic subject initiatives designed to speed up adoption of vitality effectivity and renewable vitality applied sciences throughout native public businesses and educational 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 Avenue 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 Govt 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 might be growing applied sciences to assist California meet its clear vitality objectives. This system, which gives free enterprise companies by a consortium of regional accomplice organizations to assist vitality entrepreneurs efficiently deliver their improvements to market, has since change into the flagship initiative of Cleantech San Diego for the previous seven years.
“Marty was the plain option to launch and lead this program,” stated 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 popularity that it has garnered as one of many high 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.”
Underneath 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 Power Fee’s grant. All whereas driving market transformation with new vitality applied sciences that may allow the state of California to attain its 2045 zero internet carbon objective.
Throughout Turock’s tenure, 73 corporations have been served by SCEIN, 36 of that are lively in this system in 2023. Collectively, these startups make use of 812 individuals, and have had 469 patents accepted 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 best 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 got been a member of,” stated UCAP Energy President and CEO Gordon Schenk. “As a small startup, UCAP Energy joined SCEIN in July of 2020. A troublesome 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 got 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 available in the market.”
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 vitality effectivity retrofits, clear vitality installations, and the event of vitality administration capabilities by Proposition 39 funds. The initiative made the San Diego area a high winner of those funds by expediting the method and fostering the sharing of vitality effectivity and clear vitality greatest practices throughout the 45 college districts in SDG&E’s service territory. Underneath 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 initiatives at 528 websites throughout each college 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 decreasing greenhouse gasoline emissions and making a more healthy studying atmosphere.
From 2009-2012, Turock chaired a Regional Avenue Lighting Working Group to create a greatest observe sharing discussion board for the 18 cities and different public businesses within the SDG&E service territory to share key learnings that might speed up the retrofit of the area’s high- and low-pressure sodium streetlights to induction and LED fixtures as an environmentally pleasant solution to cut back the excessive price 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 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 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 vital 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 functions. The endeavor resulted in 192 photo voltaic PV initiatives 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 all the area by many successes,” stated Kathy Valverde, Assistant to the Metropolis Supervisor, Metropolis of Santee. “Marty raised our metropolis’s consciousness and curiosity within the vital significance of sustainability initiatives 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 subject program focusing on the preliminary deployment of vitality effectivity and renewable vitality initiatives with the Metropolis of Santee and the Metropolis of Lemon Grove to validate the financial, social, and environmental advantages of these initiatives and set an instance for different public businesses throughout the San Diego area. The ensuing vitality effectivity retrofits and photo voltaic photovoltaic (PV) initiatives have been the primary deployments in San Diego County’s authorities company sector, and people early successes validated the triple backside line advantages of fresh vitality initiatives, which motivated lots of the different public businesses throughout the county to develop local weather motion plans and launch vitality financial savings and decarbonization initiatives.
“Trying again, it was in all probability unrealistic on our half to count on anybody particular person to have the ability manage and lead an ever-changing group of people and corporations by a sequence of very completely different, and largely untested, initiatives, pilots, and implementations,” stated Cleantech San Diego Co-Founder Jim Waring. “But Marty efficiently pulled it off, repeatedly, yr after yr. It’s actually superb from the vantage level of 2023 to replicate upon every little thing 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 all the cleantech business,” stated Anderson. “There’s little question our group will proceed to really feel the monumental impacts of his life’s work for a really very long time to come back.”
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About Cleantech San Diego
Cleantech San Diego is a member-based enterprise affiliation that positions the higher 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 business 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 financial system, the atmosphere, and all members of the group. Be taught extra at cleantechsandiego.org.
Concerning the Southern California Power Innovation Community
The Southern California Power Innovation Community (SCEIN) is a free incubator program for clear vitality startups primarily based in San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Imperial counties which might be growing applied sciences to assist California meet its local weather objectives. This system offers entry to the assets and amenities of regional accomplice organizations and connections with business with the intention 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 Power Fee to assist advance California’s vitality innovation business. SCEIN functions are accepted on a rolling foundation. Anybody concerned with making use of as an entrepreneur, changing into a mentor, becoming a member of the Technical Advisory Committee, or internet hosting a pilot demonstration mission, can be taught extra at cleantechsandiego.org/scein.
Media Contact:
Shannon Bresnahan, Cleantech San Diego, 858-568-7777, shannonb@cleantechsandiego.org
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