Last year, Travis Fisher, a senior advisor at the U.S. Department of Energy, was thrust into the hot seat as the lead author of a study on baseload energy requested by Secretary Perry. Now, Axios is reporting that Fisher is leaving the agency, in part due to policy differences. (Check out The Interchange podcast from last summer where Fisher dives into the process of writing the report, the critical reactions and the key findings.)

Also related to The Interchange, Energy Impact Partners has brought on podcast co-host Shayle Kann as SVP of research and strategy. Hans Kobler, EIP’s CEO, describes the firm as “a hybrid between a corporate and a financial investment arm.” Kann spent nearly a decade at the helm of GTM Research before departing last fall.

“I'm excited to be joining Energy Impact Partners,” Kann told GTM. “I'm a big fan of EIP's model and am thrilled to have the opportunity to leverage their unique ecosystem of utilities, portfolio companies and investors to keep pondering the future of energy.” Despite his formal departure from GTM, he can still be found on the digital airwaves every week with GTM Editor-in-Chief Stephen Lacey.

John Chang has joined Marathon Capital as managing director. Previously, Chang was the head of power and utilities at Rothschild, where he had been for two decades. At Marathon, Chang will leverage his decades of experience to continue to build the company’s renewables platform and develop the firm’s practices across the energy sector, including fossil fuel generation, utilities and infrastructure and transmission. 

Xcel Energy has chosen longtime executive David Eves as its new group president of utilities. Eves moves over from Xcel Energy Colorado, where he was president. He is replacing Marvin McDaniel Jr. who is retiring soon but still holds the title of chief administrative officer until his replacement for that position is identified.

Michael Goggin is leaving his position as senior director of research at the American Wind Energy Association to join former colleague Rob Gramlich at startup consulting firm Grid Strategies as vice president. In his new role, Goggin will provide “research, analysis and technical and regulatory solutions to grid challenges,” Gramlich said in a statement. AWEA’s Vice President of Public Affairs Peter Kelley has also departed after eight years at the organization.

Brian Scaccia has joined SunPower as corporate counsel, where he’ll focus on strategic M&A transactions as part of the company’s continuing restructuring efforts. SunPower could be hit particularly hard by Trump’s tariffs on imported solar cells and modules, and its CEO said it is already feeling the negative effects. Before moving to SunPower, Scaccia was corporate counsel at Cypress Creek Renewables. 

In other lawyer moves, Paul Esformes has joined solar developer Ecoplexus as corporate counsel for the company's utility-scale projects nationwide. Paul spent the past three years at Pacific Gas & Electric as an analyst and regulatory case manager.

GCL New Energy, the world’s largest solar developer, has hired Santiago Senn as director of business development for Latin America. He was previously with the Phelan Energy Group as managing director, head of Latin America. GCL has more than 5 gigawatts deployed, according to GTM Research, and another 7 gigawatts in development.

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Enertech Search Partners, an executive search firm with a dedicated cleantech practice, is the sponsor of the GTM jobs column.

Among its many active searches, Enertech is looking for a SVP of project development.

The client is seeking a Senior Vice President to manage a large team to develop and implement ongoing strategy for a variety of technologies, industry segments and geographic markets, including a global reach. The ideal candidate for the role is highly analytical by nature, is a strong mentor and leader, possesses extensive energy contract negotiation experience, and understands FERC policies such as PURPA. The SVP should have a strong track record of renewable energy project delivery (solar and/or wind required) and be a hands-on leader, active in all phases of the process.

Enertech Search Partners welcomes Betsy Martin as managing director for smart cities and e-mobility. Her 15 years of experience leading technical recruiting and building teams in Silicon Valley and Boston positions her perfectly to help Enertech continue to expand its service offerings. “The addition of Betsy to our firm will translate into a natural expansion of our successes in distributed energy, energy efficiency, electric vehicles and grid transformation,” said Enertech CEO Paige Carratturo. Read more here.

GTM and Enertech recently surveyed hundreds of cleantech professionals in a wide variety of roles to understand how the industry is attracting and retaining the talent it needs to flourish. Download the free report here.

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Wisconsin Public Service Commission chair Ellen Nowak is now the state’s secretary of the Department of Administration, the first woman to hold the title in 30 years. PSC Commissioner Lon Roberts will serve as PSC chairman.

Energy-efficiency SaaS startup Redaptive has picked up Margaret Hodes as director of product development. She spent the last year at Tesla where she led the product strategy team for Tesla’s DER aggregation platform, and before that was at SolarCity and Stem.

Paige Janson has been promoted to chief commercial officer at Engie Insight after holding various positions for more than a decade with the company, which was formerly Ecova before Engie bought it in 2014.

Solar customer acquisition SaaS provider Evelar Solar has brought on Steve Roy as chief strategy officer and Jennifer Hurst as director of marketing. The startup recently closed a $5 million Series A. Last fall, founding partners (and brothers) Thomas Higgs and Nate Higgs left to co-found H2 Consulting.

The Interstate Renewable Energy Council has elected John Hall and Dan Reicher to its board of directors. Hall is associate vice president for the Environmental Defense Fund in Texas and Reicher is executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University, and was previously at Google as director of climate change and energy initiatives. 

Also in board moves, Karla Loeb, Sigora Solar’s vice president of policy and business development, has been elected to the Solar Energy Industries Association’s board of directors.  

Another solar organization, the Hawaii Solar Energy Association, has elected Brian Gold as its president. He is president of Solaray, which owns and operates Inter-Island Solar Supply, a distributor of wholesale solar equipment based in Hawaii.

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As always, please send clean energy job moves to tips@greentechmedia.