Cleantech Trade Pioneer Martin Turock Retires
Cleantech San Diego’s first and longest-serving worker made a transformative affect 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 Vitality Innovation Community (SCEIN) has retired from the group after spending 16 years spearheading power effectivity initiatives that catalyzed a whole bunch of recent jobs and injected a whole bunch 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 fuel 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 collection of strategic subject 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 Vitality Effectivity & Conservation Block Grant Program, the IRS Clear Renewable Vitality Bonds Program, the San Diego Regional Road Lighting Working Group, and the San Diego Regional Ok-12 Faculties Sustainability Collaborative, amongst others.
In 2016, Cleantech San Diego was awarded a $5 million grant from the California Vitality Fee to launch the Southern California Vitality 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 might be creating applied sciences to assist California meet its clear power targets. This system, which gives free enterprise providers via a consortium of regional accomplice organizations to assist power entrepreneurs efficiently deliver their improvements to market, has since turn out to be the flagship initiative of Cleantech San Diego for the previous seven years.
“Marty was the plain option to launch and lead this program,” mentioned 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 fame that it has garnered as one of many high power innovation clusters within the nation. Due to 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 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 offered by the California Vitality Fee’s grant. All whereas driving market transformation with new power applied sciences that can allow the state of California to realize its 2045 zero web carbon purpose.
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 permitted 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 workforce that UCAP Energy met. From the preliminary go to, we knew that it was the appropriate resolution to affix. The extent of professionalism, honest perception in serving to others get forward, and sharing of data has been unmatched in different incubators we now have 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 troublesome time to do enterprise with the pandemic simply beginning, however with Marty’s and SCEIN assist, UCAP Energy has been very profitable since that early starting. After becoming a member of SCEIN we now have gone from a workforce of three to almost 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 Ok-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 high winner of those funds by expediting the method and fostering the sharing of power effectivity and clear power greatest practices throughout the 45 college districts in SDG&E’s service territory. Below Marty’s management, the collaborative course of enabled native Ok-12 faculties to safe $121 million in Proposition 39 grant funding that was used to implement power effectivity and clear power initiatives at 528 websites throughout each college district within the county and delivering power financial savings of 48 million kilowatt-hours per yr leading to price financial savings of greater than $11 million yearly – all whereas lowering greenhouse fuel emissions and making a more healthy studying surroundings.
From 2009-2012, Turock chaired a Regional Road Lighting Working Group to create a greatest follow 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 strategy to scale back the excessive price of streetlighting for municipalities. On the conclusion of the undertaking, 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 fuel emissions by 18,720,000 kilos.
For the IRS Clear Renewable Vitality 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 important 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 functions. The endeavor resulted in 192 photo voltaic PV initiatives permitted 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 your entire 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 important 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 power effectivity and renewable power 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 power 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 power initiatives, which motivated most 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 most likely unrealistic on our half to anticipate anybody individual to have the opportunity manage and lead an ever-changing group of people and firms via a collection of very totally different, and principally untested, initiatives, pilots, and implementations,” mentioned Cleantech San Diego Co-Founder Jim Waring. “But Marty efficiently pulled it off, again and again, yr after yr. It’s really wonderful from the vantage level of 2023 to replicate upon every thing he has achieved.”
“Cleantech San Diego needs Marty the perfect in his retirement and extends our deepest thanks for his years of top-notch collegiality and unwavering ardour in assist of our group, our members, and your entire cleantech trade,” mentioned Anderson. “There’s little doubt our group 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 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 assist 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 embody greater than 130 companies, universities, governments, and nonprofits dedicated to advancing sustainable options for the good thing about the financial system, the surroundings, and all members of the group. Study extra at cleantechsandiego.org.
In regards to the Southern California Vitality Innovation Community
The Southern California Vitality Innovation Community (SCEIN) is a free incubator program for clear power startups primarily based in San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Imperial counties which might be creating applied sciences to assist California meet its local weather targets. This system offers entry to the assets and services of regional accomplice organizations and connections with trade as a way 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 Vitality Fee to assist advance California’s power innovation trade. SCEIN functions are accepted on a rolling foundation. Anybody desirous about making use of as an entrepreneur, turning into a mentor, becoming a member of the Technical Advisory Committee, or internet hosting a pilot demonstration undertaking, can study extra at cleantechsandiego.org/scein.
Media Contact:
Shannon Bresnahan, Cleantech San Diego, 858-568-7777, shannonb@cleantechsandiego.org
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