Dr. Masood Akhtar
Vice President Business Development

Dr. Masood Akhtar is an energy entrepreneur who takes a sincere interest in making the world a better place. Masood serves as President of CleanTech Partners, a company founded in 2003 by Wisconsin-based Focus on Energy to help commercialize energy efficient emerging technologies by providing capital, business mentoring, grant writing assistance and other assistance critical for technology deployment. In 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) selected Wisconsin as the first state in the nation to deploy energy-saving technologies based on Focus on Energy's successful Industrial Program and CleanTech Partners successful deployment model. With a broad background in research, development, commercialization, marketing, technology transfer, and management experience in the field of energy-efficiency and renewable energy, Masood is uniquely qualified to make energy-saving projects happen. Masood also founded Biopulping International in 1996 to develop energy-saving rechnologies in the energy-intensive pulp and paper industry. Initially working with biological fungal agents and more recently chemical treatment of forest-based wood furnishes, Masood's technologies can save billions of kilowatts each year of electricity if commercially implemented in the pulp and paper industry. In addition millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced to the atmosphere. In 2006 CleanTech Partners established a Biorefinery Deployment Collaborative, a national initiative, to build private and public institutional readiness and deployment in the U.S. Bio-economy. A primary goal of the Bio-economy is to reduce our nation's dependence on foreign oil.

In 2003, Dr. Akhtar was elected as a fellow by the International Academy of Wood Science. A recognized member of the energy community, Dr. Akhtar has testified on U.S. Congress's request before the committee on value added bio-based chemicals and fuels like cellulosic ethanol for reducing foreign dependence on oil. In 2005, Dr. Akhtar was appointed on the Forest Research Advisory Committee (FRAC) by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to advise the Secretary on forestry research administered and undertaken by the USDA; earning him an appointment of Vice Chairman of the committee for 2009. Dr. Akhtar's efforts have helped numerous companies secure large grants from the USDA and DOE for commercialization of energy-efficient technologies and bio-fuels.

Darren Pedersen
Producer

Mr. Darren Pedersen has committed most of his 20-year professional career to environmental business and green causes. He has an extensive background in marketing and multi media production. For the last 10 years he has been a leader in the recycling and waste to energy industries. Mr. Pedersen was on of the original founders and investors of World Waste Technologies, Inc. Now a publicly traded recycling company that uses innovative technologies to maximize waste recovery and the reuse of municipal solid waste. There he directed all of the companies marketing activities, served on the Board and played a key role exploring new technologies and establishing new alliances.

Mr. Pedersen provides marketing consulting and served on the Board of Plas2Fuel, Inc., a plastics recycling company that converts waste plastics back into oil, fuels and other valuable chemicals using a revolutionary, environmentally friendly technology. He is also a major equity holder in the company. Currently Mr. Pedersen is working very closely with Clean Earth Solutions, Inc. (CES), a start-up company dedicated to the development of clean, green, alternative bio-fuels made from recycled materials derived from municipal solid waste using cutting edge waste processing technologies. At (CES) he oversees the companies marketing and communications as their Chief Marketing Officer, helped to secure $5 million in start-up capital and served on the Board of Directors for two years. Darren's real passion, however, is to educate and entertain children around the world in the techniques of preserving the environment and conserving energy of all kinds which led him to another energy advocate, Dr. Marc Sabourin. Together they founded the Youth Energy Initiative, (YEI). Over the last four years, Darren has donated his time serving as the companies marketing consultant and co-producer for the multi-media projects. He has helped to create YEI's Strategic marketing plan and marketing materials including the branding, website, movie/video scripts and presentations. He also serves on the non-profit's Board of Directors. Through his involvement with YEI, Mr. Pedersen hopes to encourage children to act today to assure their future tomorrow!

Aaron Myers
Vice President/Creative Director

Aaron Myers is the Creative Director of Youth Energy Initiative (YEI).  He is responsible for developing all of YEI's entertainment content, as well as designing the look and overseeing the creative teams that pull everything together.  

Myers joined YEI in 2006 as a consultant and quickly began to get inspired by the message the non-profit was pushing and decided to devote more time and energy into the process.  In 2008, Myers left his job at Apple, Inc. to devote more time on some of the exciting projects he has planned at YEI,  bringing with him a wealth of knowledge from the fields of comics, animation and music. 

Originally a native of Baltimore, MD, Myers now calls San Diego, CA home where he works on a multitude of projects for YEI and other media companies.  He has run his own record label, worked for a major comic book publisher and is currently working on projects with two major animation studios and has completed toy designs and t-shirts for various other companies.  Aaron can usually be found on his day of at Disneyland, dreaming up YEI's next big project.

Claudio Gutierrez
Brand Marketing/Creative Consultant

As worldwide creative director for Hewlett-Packard, Claudio leads the global brand design team that provides dynamic, online, print, video and motion graphic production to help support the HP brand within their Technology Solutions Group. A pioneer in the development of multimedia, web-based design and event production, Claudio earlier served as worldwide creative director at Peregrine Systems from 2001-2005, before it was acquired by HP. Claudio is a master at producing high-impact methods for presenting the company's brand and products, supporting online marketing and major events. Mr. Gutierrez also served as creative director and producer for Infolmage, Inc., a software company and Micrsoft partner. As a founding partner for The La Jolla Group, a high-end media firm serving Fortune 500 companies such as Disney and Sony, Claudio developed innovating computer animation, video, sounds and graphics to promote business initiatives.

Claudio holds a number of awards including the 2000 American Marketing Association AMIE Award for Design, a 2001 Addy Award for a national broadcast campaign he directed and produced, and recognized twice with the Chairman's Award for the creation and development of the Peregrine "Frictionless Business" and "Evolve Wisely" brands. Claudio has served clients such as HP, Limelight Networks, ING Bank, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Infosys and Sensage. An accomplished musician and dedicated to Youth Energy Initiative's cause for worldwide energy sustainability, we are proud to have Claudio heading our Interactive Marketing and Media Team.