The Speakers
Saul Griffith
Saul Griffith is an engineer and entrepreneur specializing in clean and renewable energy technologies. Saul has founded a dozen technology companies across 20 years in Silicon Valley. Saul is the author of 3 books including `Electrify', and `The Big Switch'. Saul has recently turned his attention from Otherlab, his independent Research and Development lab, to policy work and writing, including founding Rewiring America and Rewiring Australia, non-partisan organizations dedicated to electrification and decarbonization and the associated policy and regulatory implications of meeting our climate goals.
Tara Houska
Tara Houska is a citizen of Couchiching First Nation, a tribal attorney, land defender, environmental and Indigenous rights advocate, and founder of the Giniw Collective, an Indigenous women, two-spirit-led frontline resistance to defend the sacred and live in balance. Tara Houska has been active in resisting the Line 3 oil pipeline, the Dakota Access pipeline, and is involved in the movement to reclaim Land Back and in defunding fossil fuels.
@giniwcollective
Leah Stokes
Leah Stokes is the Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics at UC Santa Barbara, where she studies energy, climate, and environmental policy. Her work focuses on how political systems and utilities shape clean energy progress and public opinion around climate action. She is the author of Short Circuiting Policy, named one of The New York Times’ top climate books of 2020, which exposes how utilities have delayed the clean energy transition. Leah also serves as Senior Policy Counsel at Rewiring America and co-hosts the climate podcast A Matter of Degrees. Recognized by TIME100 Next and Business Insider for her leadership in climate advocacy, she bridges academic research and public discourse to accelerate electrification and climate solutions. She is currently on leave as a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University, writing a new book on federal climate policy.
Bob Inglis
Bob Inglis is the Executive Director of republicEn.org, a conservative organization advocating for free-market solutions to climate change. A former U.S. Congressman from South Carolina (1993–1998, 2004–2010), Bob shifted his focus after leaving office to champion clean energy innovation and responsible climate policy rooted in conservative principles. He’s a 2015 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award recipient for his leadership on climate action. Bob has shared his perspective through appearances in Merchants of Doubt, Showtime’s Years of Living Dangerously, and multiple TEDx talks. With experience as a fellow at Harvard, Duke, and the University of Chicago, he brings a thoughtful, bipartisan approach to electrification and energy reform. He lives with his wife, Mary Anne, on a small farm in Greenville County, South Carolina.
Debbie Dooley
Debbie Dooley, a Grassroots Mobilization consultant, co-founded the Atlanta Tea Party and is a national coordinator and Board of Directors member of the Tea Party Patriots. Dooley was one of the 22 founders of the Tea Party movement that started in 2009. She is also the Founder of Green Tea Coalition and an advocate for green energy and energy choice.
Dooley has been involved in the political process since 1976 and attended the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. She is a proud Crimson Tide fan.
ROBERT BLAKE
Robert Blake is the owner of Solar Bear, pronounced Gizis-o-makwa in Ojibwe, a solar installation company located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is also the Executive Director of Native Sun Community Power Development, a Non-Profit also located in Minneapolis, committed to delivering energy sovereignty, to Native Americans.
As a tribal citizen of the Red Lake Nation, Robert firmly believes that energy sovereignty is not just about power in the electrical sense. It is about our collective power to heal our communities and the Earth. It is about the community having the power to make its own decisions around economic, environmental, and food justice.
He is a sought after speaker on Energy, Infrastructure and sustainability. Most recently speaking at the 2025 Democratic convention as well as being named a 2025 Grist fixer. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to highlighting climate solutions and uncovering environmental injustices.
Cathy leonard
Cathy Leonard has over 35 years of experience in robust community outreach and engagement. She currently serves as the Principal of Oakland Neighborhoods for Equity, where she provides consulting services to local municipalities, nonprofits, and community organizations.
Leonard has been a Community Engagement Consultant for the University of California, Berkeley since 2018, focusing on the Oakland EcoBlock research project. In this role, she has been instrumental in locating potential neighborhoods for Oakland's first EcoBlock and serves as a liaison between the project team and participants.
Throughout her career, Leonard has demonstrated a strong commitment to civic engagement and policy development. She has co-authored significant legislation with Oakland City Council members, resulting in successful ballot measures and the implementation of community-focused programs.
sandra kwak
Sandra Kwak is CEO and Founder of social impact enterprise 10Power, working with Native American Tribal Nations to develop renewable energy projects with a community workforce development and gender empowerment lens. She sees renewable energy as one to the keys for forging a path for regenerative development, a concept explored in her TEDx talk “Fourth World Nation Building.” She is a Partner at ResilientMarkets, applying regenerative design principles to realize the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Prior, she worked with AutoGrid (acquired by Schneider Electric) deploying big data for the smart grid to create Virtual Power Plants (VPPs). Sandra has a Sustainable MBA from Presidio Graduate School and BA in Political Science and Visual Art from Emory University. She taught Race, Activism and Climate Justice at San Francisco State University and has guest lectured at California College of the Arts and Stanford University. As a climate activist, Sandra enjoys creating absurdist street theater, organizing with Extinction Rebellion, and creating regenerative harmonies for a future that is possible singing with The Seastars. Most importantly, she is a mother.
Ann edminster
After earning her B.S. in Architecture from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, Ann Edminster founded her own firm, Design AVEnues, where she designed over 100 home remodels and gained extensive experience in residential construction. Seeking deeper environmental impact, she returned to school in the early 1990s—before “green building” was a recognized term—to earn an M.Arch. from UC Berkeley, focusing on energy, materials, and housing. Today, Anna continues to center her work on those same passions, guiding every project with a commitment to driving the building industry and our communities toward a safe, equitable, and sustainable future.
Sean Armstrong
Sean Armstrong is the Managing Principal of Redwood Energy and has worked for 28 years in building electrification, designed the retrofit and new construction of more than 25,000 all-electric residences for disadvantaged populations, co-authored 7 "pocket guides" to building electrification, provided legal and technical support to building gas bans nationwide, and has received Grand Prize awards from the United Nations and the California Building Industry Association. Sean was inducted into California's Clean Energy Hall of Fame in 2022, and in 2023-2024 is working with other nations on their Net Zero goals on behalf of the U.S. State Department.
Vanessa Guerra
Director of Rental Housing Development at CHIP.