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About eSolar Our passion for solving technical problems stems from a desire to produce an impact on the world around us
About Us
Bill Gross
Bill Gross is a lifelong entrepreneur and proponent of solar power. While still in college, Mr. Gross founded Solar Devices, a firm that sold plans and kits for solar energy products. As the CEO of the technology incubator Idealab, Mr. Gross has founded several extremely successful companies, including Overture (acquired by Yahoo!), CarsDirect, and Picasa (acquired by Google). Idealab recently moved into the renewable energy market with Energy Innovations, a sister company to eSolar that focuses on the retail rooftop solar market. Mr. Gross sits on the Board of Directors of the California Institute of Technology, where he obtained his BS in Mechanical Engineering.

John Van Scoter
John Van Scoter, Chief Executive Officer, is a seasoned leader in the advancement and implementation of global market strategies for emerging technologies. Throughout his 25-year career at Texas Instruments (TI), Mr. Van Scoter served as Senior Vice President responsible for the DLP® Products division growing the technology to a recognized ingredient brand in the HDTV, Projector, and Digital Cinema markets. He also served as TI's Vice President for emerging DSP start-up businesses in MP3/Internet Audio and Printing markets, as well as in various product development, manufacturing, and sales capacities. Immediately prior to joining eSolar, Mr. Van Scoter developed TI's Alternative Energy strategies for the smart grid/meter, solar, LED lighting, smart motor, and energy harvesting markets. Mr. Van Scoter obtained his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Vermont and also serves on the Tyco Electronics (NYSE: TEL) Board of Directors.

Bandel L. Carano
Bandel L. Carano, Managing Partner, joined Oak Investment Partners in 1985 and became a General Partner in 1987. Mr. Carano has invested in companies with emphasis on Wireless and Rich-Media communications (2Wire, Airspan, Avici, CommVerge, CoreTek, Endwave, FiberTower, General Bandwidth, Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, MobiTV, NeoPhotonics, Netopia, PictureTel, Plastic Logic, Polycom, Presidio, PulsePoint, Qtera, Sentient Networks, SmartDrive Systems, Tegic, Trapeze, and Wellfleet); Advanced Software Systems (Entropic, firstRain, Illustra/Informix, Sybase, Tele Atlas and Visto); Advanced Semiconductors (Actel, Airgo, CommQuest, Kenet, Level 5, NemeriX, Newport Media, nLight, Qpixel, Resonext, SMIC, Solarflare, Stretch, Synaptics and Virata); Design Automation (Centric Software, Interconnectix, Parametric, Synopsys and Tensilica) and Clean Energy Technologies (Aurora BioFuels, Boston-Power, eSolar, GreenVolts, NanoH2O, PML, ReliOn, and Sundrop Fuels). Prior to Oak, Mr. Carano joined Morgan Stanley's Venture Capital Group in 1983. He was responsible for advising Morgan Stanley on high-tech new business development, as well as sponsoring venture investments. Mr. Carano received BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He currently serves on the Investment Advisory Board of the Stanford Engineering Venture Fund.

Brian L. Hinman
Brian L. Hinman joined Oak as a Venture Partner in 2006. Mr. Hinman is the co-founder, and formerly the President and CEO, of 2Wire, a provider of broadband service platforms for the DSL market. Mr. Hinman is also the co-founder, and formerly the CEO, of Polycom, Inc., (NASDAQ: PLCM) the world's leading teleconferencing company. Mr. Hinman was the co-founder of PictureTel Corporation (formerly NASDAQ: PCTL) at the age of 22, pioneering the video compression technology that has endured into the standards of today. Mr. Hinman is an engineer by training, a specialist in digital signal processing, and holds twelve U.S. patents. He has received several awards for entrepreneurship, including being named an Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young in 2005. To catalyze entrepreneurship at his alma mater, he sponsors the Hinman CEO (Campus Entrepreneurship Opportunities) Program at the University of Maryland. Mr. Hinman currently serves on the board of directors of three Oak portfolio companies, Aurora Biofuels, Qpixel Technology and 2Wire. He has previously served on the national board of the American Electronic Association, and was co-founder and director of the International Multimedia Teleconferencing Consortium (IMTC). Mr. Hinman holds a B.S.E.E. Summa Cum Laude from the University of Maryland, and an S.M.E.E. from M.I.T.

Marcia Goodstein
Marcia Goodstein founded Idealab with Bill Gross in March 1996 and since that time has been instrumental in the creation and development of dozens of Idealab network companies in industries ranging from clean technologies and robotics to search technologies and Internet retail. Today Ms. Goodstein serves as Idealab's Chief Operating Officer and President and currently serves on the boards of numerous companies including eSolar, Evolution Robotics, Evolution Robotics Retail, Snap Technologies, X1 Technologies and Internet Brands. Prior to founding Idealab, Ms. Goodstein worked at several start-up companies and was an early employee of Gemstar Development Corporation responsible for media licensing for North America, as well as marketing and distribution in South America. Prior to joining Gemstar, Marcia worked in a biology lab at the California Institute of Technology. She is a graduate of Pomona College.

Atul Sabharwal
Atul Sabharwal serves as the ACME Group's Chief Operating Officer. His history with the company has been at both a strategic and operational level. During the course of Mr. Sabharwal's tenure with ACME, revenues have grown from $2MM USD to $450MM, and the group has diversified successfully from a single line of business to multiple distinct businesses that are synergistic to its telecom core. He currently serves on the boards of ACME's various operating companies and focuses exclusively on finding technologies that are of relevance to underdeveloped regions of the world that ACME can socially profit from. Mr. Sabharwal has previously worked at AOL, IBM, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and The Boston Consulting Group. He received an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management and was the only graduate selected to attend the Wharton School of Business to complete his MBA.

George (Chip) Hambro
Mr. Hambro has extensive experience leading the R&D, engineering, manufacturing, and general business aspects of Fortune 500 technology corporations, with particular emphasis on compound semiconductor-based photonic devices. Mr. Hambro joined First Solar in 2001 as Vice President of Engineering and served as General Manager for two years until assuming his role as Chief Operating Officer in 2005. As COO, he led the company to its successful IPO, increased its global reach, strategically focused R&D to advance the company's thin-film photovoltaic (PV) technology, and solidified First Solar's place as a solar industry leader. Prior to joining First Solar, Mr. Hambro held positions of Vice President of Engineering and Business Development for BFGoodrich Aerospace, Vice President of Operations at ITT, and various technical management positions at Varian Associates. Current civic commitments include the posts of Interim CEO at the Toledo Science Center and Director of the Toledo Zoo. Mr. Hambro graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in Physical Science (Applied Physics).
eSolar has assembled a world class team to bring its CSP technology to market. Together we represent a long lasting track record of experience in solar technologies.





eSolar is an Idealab company