DECO Lighting is referred to as the Facebook and Zappos of energy efficiency lighting solutions and when you take a tour of their manufacturing facility and corporate offices you immediately start to experience by sight and sound the reasons for this comparison.  The young

Ten years ago a couple of really smart entrepreneurs with experience from very large financial corporations had a big vision on how to build an innovative company that solve a very important global problem.   They identified the growing energy problem and the huge opportunity to improve on how to manufacture next generation digital lighting to save energy and the costs associated.   They went about building from the ground up both the advanced designed technology state-of-the art digital lighting products and would include and integrate a unique philosophy, culture and design in the manufacturing of the product.  They also decided to focus on creating jobs and economic development for the community and committed to staying loyal to their roots based in Los Angeles. 

DECO Lighting is referred to as the Facebook and Zappos of energy efficiency lighting solutions and when you take a tour of their manufacturing facility and corporate offices you immediately start to experience by sight and sound the reasons for this comparison.  The young

Ten years ago a couple of really smart entrepreneurs with experience from very large financial corporations had a big vision on how to build an innovative company that solve a very important global problem.   They identified the growing energy problem and the huge opportunity to improve on how to manufacture next generation digital lighting to save energy and the costs associated.   They went about building from the ground up both the advanced designed technology state-of-the art digital lighting products and would include and integrate a unique philosophy, culture and design in the manufacturing of the product.  They also decided to focus on creating jobs and economic development for the community and committed to staying loyal to their roots based in Los Angeles. 

The company is DECO Lighting www.getdeco.com and the two Co-founders are Sam Sinai, CEO and Ben Pouladian, President. They are cousins and 10 years ago they both made decision to leave their plush investment banking positions and transitioned to unloading trucks, packing products for shipment and driving a forklift. from being Investment bankers, Ben worked at Jefferies, a global investment bank and Sam worked at Morgan Stanley, another global investment bank and decided to leave their plush offices and in essence start doing manual labor.  They each shared about unloading the first shipment of  products and learning how to drive a forklift.

Located in the City of Commerce just a few miles south of Los Angeles City Hall the Co-founders of DECO Lighting Sam 'JR' Sinai who is the CEO and Ben Poulandian the President are leading a team of lighting engineers and technology innovators that are revolutionizing the century and half old light bulb industry.

Economic Development
They are also accomplishing and solving a even larger problem by being loyal to the community by locating their business just 10 miles south from City Hall and creating jobs. They are  doing their part in the community by generating opportunities for economic development and jobs in the County of Los Angeles. The employment opportunities cover a wide array of skills that include customer service, design, digital marketing, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, production, research, sales, shipping, social media, software, technology innovation, website design and warehousing

The mission of Deco Lighting is to be the leading provider of innovative, high quality lighting fixtures and systems to commercial, municipal and utility markets.  They are at the forefront of educating schools on how to save on their utility bills.

Energy efficiency is one of the simplest and most cost effective ways schools can save money—money that can be spent on the tools, provisions, and facilities needed to provide students with a high-quality education. Reducing a school’s energy bill can save the school much needed funds that it can use towards important building upgrades or improving its educational infrastructure. Not to mention, that using energy efficiently sets a positive example for a school’s students and community, encouraging them to use energy efficiently in the future and throughout their lives.

Proposition 39 Since it passed, Deco Lighting has been working in conjunction with the new California Clean Energy Jobs Act (Proposition 39), to help schools throughout California reduce their energy bills. Prop. 39 is a state program that provides funding to education offices, school districts, charter schools, and state special schools to improve energy efficiency. In 2012, the passing of Prop. 39 closed a corporate tax loophole in California that is now generating over half a billion dollars in revenue each year, most of which is allocated for clean energy projects in K-12 schools and community colleges.

LED LightingvLighting is one of the easiest sources of energy expenditures to adjust and regulate; however, alarmingly, over 25 percent of a typical school’s energy consumption is attributed to lighting. LED lighting is the most energy efficient lighting technology on the market, and upgrading or retrofitting traditional lighting, such as fluorescent lamps, to LED is the most effective way to reduce the energy costs attributed to lighting. Deco Lighting offers several LED retrofit kits that simultaneously improve the quality of light and reduce power consumption by up to 75 percent when compared to fluorescent tubes. Deco’s Linea Troffer and Parabolic LED Retrofit Kit upgrades standard 1X4, 2X2, and 2X4 fluorescent troffers in as little as five minutes. Moreover, there is no need to go above the ceiling or remove any existing housing when installing Deco’s Linea Retrofit Kit, which prevents exposure to any asbestos that the ceilings of many old buildings and schools may contain. All of Deco’s LED solutions are also backed by a 10-year, 100,000-hour warranty, which includes labor.

About Deco Lighting
Deco Lighting is a leading manufacturer changing the world of lighting with the latest green technology, energy saving lighting and controls. Renowned for innovative, intelligent lighting solutions, Deco Lighting continually wins industry awards and patents for unique product designs. Deco Lighting products are proven in commercial, municipal, military and government installations throughout the U.S. and worldwide. Our extensive product portfolio includes architectural and commercial fluorescent, Induction, HID, LED, Plasma, Solar, Dark Sky friendly outdoor luminaires, emergency fixtures, lighting controls and custom fixtures.

Deco Lighting is U.S. based in Commerce, California, located a few miles from downtown Los Angeles. Our 85,000 sq. ft. facility includes corporate headquarters, manufacturing, warehousing, shipping, design and engineering departments, test lab, conference center, product showroom, and offices for management, sales, customer service and accounting. Deco Lighting is represented by expert independent lighting sales agencies throughout North America, and by select distributors for international markets.

The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator Leadership Council and guests were treated to a remarkable cloud hazed view of the Los Angeles skyline atop the 54 story Wells Fargo building and an equally impressive preview of the CAGIX - California Global Innovation Exchange funding platform. Bradford Weirick hosted the event at the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher Los Angeles office in their spacious glass designed event conference room that for years was home to the City Club Los Angeles that moved to the top floor of the City National Building.

The agenda for day included presentations from Ian Gardner, Chief Strategy and Investment Officer at LACI and CEO of CAGIX, who gave an great explanation about the CAGIX cleantech innovation management and funding platform. www.cagix.com  

Wendy Butts, CEO of LA Conservation Corps and some of her team described many of their programs and initiatives of their organization. www.lacorps.org

Yotam Solomon, CEO of Revoterial which is one of the LACI's Portfolio Companies described the innovation and superior eco-friendly products their company is developing for the fashion industry.  Their technology is replacing outdated toxic industrial materials and creating improved lighter solutions for footwear, clothing, and the luggage categories. www.revoterial.com

Ian gave an informative presentation to the audience about California being the Cleantech capital and leader of the world and that CAGIX has combined the best in innovation practices with the most efficient funding ecosystem in one seamless platform and enables returns driven entrepreneurs and investors to work together on the biggest challenges of our generation.

The solution that CAGIX is solving is that making a smart investment requires having access to good information which adheres to a disciplined process. CAGIX employs best in class development and commercialization processes for early stage companies, broker-dealer diligence fundamentals, and long term, value driven vetting methodologies.

The CAGIX platform provides investors the tools to make a wise and informed investment.   It is a easy to navigate website to discover actionable investment opportunities which address global challenges, but with a focused eye on the bottom line.

The event brought together current members of the LACI Leadership team and guests.  in attendance were representatives from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, County of Los Angeles Sustainability Fleet & Transportation Environmental Initiatives, Los Angeles County Federation, Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Commercial Technology Partnerships Office,  

About the LA Cleantech Leadership Council
The Leadership Council is a key driving force behind the clean technology ecosystem in Los Angeles.  This exclusive group represents some of the most committed and capable leaders in cleantech from the private sector, government, and academia. Together, they steer the strategy and facilitate the connections that strengthen and grow the LA cleantech ecosystem through LACI and other regional stakeholders.
http://laincubator.org/partners/leadership-council
Notable Guests & Speakers

• US Secretary of Labor
• US EPA Administrator
• Chair on White House Council on Environmental Quality
• DOE ARPA-E Director
• DOE Secretary Chief of Staff
• DOE EEE Administrator
• LA City Councilmembers
• Chair of the California Energy Commission
  State Controller of California
  Investor and Environmentalist Tom Steyer

About Bradford P. Wierick
Bradford P. Weirick is a partner with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in its Los Angeles office.  He is Co-Chairman of the firm's Emerging Technologies Practice Group and a member of the firm's Corporations Department, focusing on mergers and acquisitions, private equity investment transactions and public and private securities offerings. www.gibsondunn.com/lawyers/bweirick

About Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, with more than 1,200 lawyers in 18 offices in major cities throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and South America.
www.gibsondunn.com

Gibson Dunn Event Conference Room
333 South Grand Avenue
54th Floor Reception

Los Angeles, CA 90071-3197 

CleantechIQ highlighted six events for those wishing to mingle with hot cleantech startups as well as brush up on emerging trends in sustainable innovation.
www.cleantechiq.com

ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, Feb 9-11, 2015, Washington, DC
Organizer: U.S. Department of Energy
Ticket Cost: $1,500
The ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit brings together the very best minds in business, academia, and government to advance cutting-edge technologies that could fundamentally change the way we generate, use and store energy. And the Ultralight Startups/Future Energy event series will co-host the investor pitch event this year on Feb 9.

SustainSummit, Feb 11 – 12, 2015, Newport Beach, CA  
Organizer: International Business Forum
Ticket Cost: $995
The Sustain Summit showcases corporate sustainable innovation strategies and best practices across multiple industries for peer-to-peer learning which reveals the massive opportunities offered by solving our collective global challenges. This event will bring together top innovators, corporations, government agencies, investors and thought leaders, in a program unlike any other – where sustainability strategies meet innovation opportunities. Key session topics will include: sustainability in the energy sector, evolving corporate partnership models, and corporate investment strategies in early stage cleantech companies.

Notable speakers at the SustainSummit will include: Bjorn Heinz, Investment Manager, BASF Venture Capital, Kim Marotta, Director of Sustainability, MillerCoors, Pat Ramm, Director, Corporate Venturing, Waste Management, Vincent Schachter, VP of Research & Development, Total New Energies, Tom Stepien, CEO, Primus Power and Wal Van Lierop, President & CEO, Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital

Cleantech Forum San Francisco, March 11 – 13, 2015, San Francisco, CA
Organizer: Cleantech Group
Ticket Cost: $1,895
This year’s theme is: Cleantech Meets the Cloud: The Emergence of Cleantech-as-a-Service.  We have observed a significant shift in energy and resource markets from centralized to distributed systems. In this increasingly decentralized world, customers would like more data and control to make better decisions. Sensors, data, software, financing mechanisms, and analytics are needed to manage our increasingly complex and decentralized world. This intelligent layer represents a massive economic opportunity across a number of different markets. They also will host an entrepreneur showcase, where company’s pitch, followed by feedback from a panel of expert judges.

Notable speakers at this year’s event include: KR Sidhar, Co-Founder and CEO, Bloom Energy, Nancy Pfund, Founder, DBL Investors, Ben Bixby, General Manager of Energy Products, Nest Labs, and Edward Fenster, Chairman, Sunrun.

Wall Street Green Summit, March 23 2015, New York, New York
Organizer: Global Change Associates
Ticket Cost: $1,895
The 14th Annual Wall Street Green Summit is the longest running and most comprehensive sustainable finance event in the industry. Launched in 2002 by Peter Fusaro, the Wall Street Green Summit covers cutting edge content, industry developments and features the practitioners and the leaders of tomorrow. The emergence of the “Impact Economy” is where main street investors team up with corporations, entrepreneurs and government to solve environmental and social problems while generating financial returns.


Wall Street Journal ECO:comics, March 25-27, 2015, Santa Barbara, CA
Organizer: The Wall Street Journal
Ticket Cost: $3,850
This March, the editors of The Wall Street Journal will bring together global CEOs, top entrepreneurs, environmental experts, policy makers and leading thinkers at ECO:nomics 2015 to identify and assess the most compelling opportunities — and pressing risks— emerging around the world in businesses impacted by the environment.

Through on-stage interviews with leading figures and interactive sessions with peers in diverse industries, participants at ECO:nomics 2015 will debate, discuss and get the inside story on essential issues: investing in innovation, disrupting current business models, the new meaning of sustainability and the future of the environmental movement, where energy policy is heading, and much, much more.

Bloomberg: The Future of Energy Summit, April 13-15, 2015, New York, New York
Organizer: Bloomberg New Energy Finance
Ticket Cost: $3,000
The Future of Energy Summit 2015 is a unique forum providing an unrivaled meeting place at the intersection of the energy markets, industry, finance and policy. The Summit gathers 1,000 senior level decision-makers who are shaping the future of energy. Attendees come from a diverse range of sectors, including banking and finance, corporations, government and multilateral international organizations.

The summit features more than 45 sessions, including high-level exchanges with policy-makers, discussions with industry leaders and unparalleled multimedia coverage both inside and outside of the Bloomberg media universe. Session tracks will be anchored in key industry areas such as the Future of Power Generation, Grids, Connected Homes, Gas and Vehicles.

When investment banker and visionary John Rosser is on the phone, celebrities and captains of industry take his call. As one of the world’s leading social, financial and environmental sustainability experts, he launched the Sustainatopia Conference five years ago to bring together thousands of thought leaders from around the globe, and hasn’t looked back since.

Sustainatopia is a dynamic showcase for the world's most extraordinary people to present solutions to challenging issues facing global financial markets, industry sectors, health, government and the environment. His mission is to ensure sustainability, prosperity and a healthy planet by engaging collaborative solutions from research, technology and capital partners in collaboration with entertainers, celebrities and influencers who have joined his cause.

Why sustainability? It’s how biological systems remain diverse and productive. In more general terms, sustainability is the endurance of systems and processes. The organizing principle is sustainable development based on the interconnecting spheres of business, politics, culture and science. For Rosser, a healthy ecosystem, emergent economies and a clean environment are necessary for the survival of humans and all life on planet Earth. Indeed Sustainatopia 2015 will include a who’s who of speakers from industry, finance and technology innovation including executives and fromCredit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, UN World Film Forum, Nielson, Zappos, UCLA, BMW Designworks, Viacom, Yahoo For Good, Safeway, and Dell.

Rosser stays closely connected to the global eco-system of social, financial and environmental sustainability and its leaders as founder of DVK, a leading impact investment firm. He is a former Managing Director of investment bank Aspen Capital Partners and Executive Producer of a children’s educational TV show that aired in 20 countries and on PBS affiliates. He has consulted for consumer products, media companies, and negotiated mergers, acquisitions and investments in transportation, education, publishing and retail. His first company launched the world’s largest global MBA job fair that was purchased by The Washington Post, which is today owned by Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon.com.

Sustainatopia 2015, being held May 27-30 in Beverly Hills, is one of the world’s leading events for social, financial and environmental sustainability with attendees from 60 countries. The mega-conference and festival has attracted expert speakers representing The White House, Rockefeller Foundation, Clinton Global Foundation, the Inter-American Development Bank. Participants include CEOs, investors, social entrepreneurs, heads of state and celebrities such as Bill Clinton, Donna Karan, Venus Williams, Patricia Arquette, Kyra Sedgwick, Philippe Cousteau, Maria Bello, Daphne Zuniga and others. Media coverage has included Forbes, Huffington Post, The New York Times, CNN/Money, The Economist, Green Tech Media, Miami Herald and CBS News. For information visit www.sustainatopia.com.

The US solar industry has engineered a 1200% increase in utility-scale capacity since 2008, according to a new blog post from the Energy Department. When you factor in the explosive rate of growth in small-scale solar, it’s clear that the current hiccup in the price of oil is not going to stop solar energy from advancing in the US market.

The only question now is how quickly the US solar industry can meet the growth in demand, and for that we turn to a pair of newly announced SunShot programs designed to help the US solar industry churn out — and install — more product than ever before.

“What the Silcon Valley has done for the dot com industry, the Research Triangle Park is doing for clean tech,” says Carol Hee, director of UNC’s Center for Sustainable Enterprise.

A recent report by Environmental Entrepreneurs, a national environmental policy group, notes that in the third quarter of 2014, North Carolina ranked fifth in the nation for new clean energy job creation. 
That’s due in large part to a cluster of clean tech companies in the Research Triangle Park, home to more than 200 companies focused on smart grid technology, efficient water management and smart transportation.
The growth of the clean tech industry in North Carolina is due to large part to the convergence of the technology companies already present in the area and the state’s pioneering energy policies, including a renewable energy tax credit for companies in the state and the renewable energy portfolio standard (REPS), a state law requiring utilities to get a portion of their electric power from renewable energy sources.

The REPS opened the door for a whole new market of sustainable energy projects, particularly in the solar industry. Summit sponsor Strata Solar reports investing $1 billion in North Carolina solar energy, including 65 solar facilities in 40 counties, and employed 2,000 workers during the past five years.

The state is also home to Fort Bragg, the country’s largest military installation, and its electricity bill is the largest on base. Most of Ft. Bragg’s energy is generated from offsite power plants running on coal, nuclear and natural gas, but the Army is looking at increasing energy efficiency, reducing costs, and installing renewable energy capacity. To date, projects include a green rooftop to lower cooling costs and a solar wall that dries the parachutes of the 82nd Airborne.

These projects are likely to become more commonplace in North Carolina and across the county, as the military looks to reduce operating costs. As a state with not just an Army base, but home to Air Force, Coast Guard and Marine installations, the potential exists for tremendous growth in the clean tech sector to be driven by the military.

As the federal government turns to renewable energy to save costs, more and more local governments around the world are looking to become smart cities. With North Carolina solidifying its hold as a clean tech cluster, it is logical that communities in the state may take advantage of these resources to create smarter cities with walkable neighborhoods, energy efficient buildings and a smart transportation infrastructure.

There are already steps in this direction. Raleigh is the test case for Cree’s LED technology, becoming its first LED city – at an annual savings of $215,000 per year in energy and maintenance costs. Envision Charlotte, a collaborative effort between building owners, managers, engineers, tenants and workers, seeks to reduce energy consumption by 20% in five years, reduce water consumption, improve air quality though alternative transportation options and divert an additional 20% of waste from landfills.

Clearly these major cities are already benefiting from technology leaders in the area, but smaller municipalities may follow suit, if conditions are ripe.

“There are so many technology and sustainability companies and organizations in the area, it would be a shame not to apply them to our needs,” says Greg Gangi, associate director for education at the Institute for the Environment at UNC Chapel Hill. “The application of technology being developed in our own backyard has tremendous potential to benefit our environment.”

It’s clear clean tech is here to stay in North Carolina, but with new technologies constantly emerging, along with new development projects like Chatham Park on the horizon, the industry is still evolving. The implications of that evolution will be felt across the state and around the country.

Carol Hee, director of UNC’s Center for Sustainable Enterprise again says “But to stay competitive, we need to continue to push the envelope and plan for the next iteration of sustainability. That’s the focus of the NC Clean Tech Summit.”

Many of these companies will be on hand for the second annual NC Clean Tech Summit, scheduled for February 19-20, 2015 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill*.

UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Center for Sustainable Enterprise and Institute for the Environment co-host the two-day summit focused on the future of the clean tech industry in the state, particularly the future of utilities, the military influence on renewables, and smart cities. Keynote speakers include Retired General Wesley Clark, Jesse Berst, founder and chairman of the Smart Cities Council and David Ozment, senior director of energy for Wal-Mart.