Rachael Simonoff Wexler,
CEO, Sunlight Planet, Venice, Calif.
Simonoff Wexler, a leading legal advisor to businesses in alternative energy and clean technology and recently named CEO of the financial services firm specializing in commercial renewable energy projects, takes the helm of a company that “has positioned itself to play an integral role in the successful adoption of renewable technology at the commercial level, especially for project sizes that fall below utility scale.” This is a unique opportunity to play a formative role in the renewable energy movement, said Wexler who comes to Sunlight Planet from the Los Angeles office of Goodwin Procter, where she was a partner in the business law department and a member of its corporate practice. Wexler built a national reputation for working on complex financial and corporate transactions for businesses in the alternative energy, recycling, nanotechnology and life sciences industries. Sunlight Planet provides financial and legal structuring services, investor support and project fund administration for owners and investors of sustainable development and renewable energy projects throughout the U.S.

Among  its various projects, the firm is providing structuring solutions for a wind turbine project in New York; project fund escrow and administration services  on the behalf of an investor group with active projects in Arizona and Pennsylvania; and a turnkey solution for the structuring, management and funds distribution for rooftop solar installation on behalf of a non-profit entity in California.

Rick Booth,
National Leader for Finance, Insurance, Real Estate, and Legal Market Sector, Golder Associates Inc., St. Louis, Mo.
A veteran of Golder since 1988, Booth primarily performed hydrogeological investigations at solid waste, industrial, hazardous, and mining sites. He serves as one of Golder’s leads for deep bedrock well-testing services and has worked in about 40 states and 15 countries. The sector he is assuming control over provides such services as environmental, health, and safety compliance, due diligence, and site remediation. Assisting with the opening of Golder’s St. Louis office and serving as its operations manager for eight years, his expertise is in the design and performance of hydrogeological investigation programs, and his extraction/dewatering system designs have resulted in numerous accolades, including receipt of a Certificate of Appreciation from the Dept. of Energy for “implementation of a new multidisciplinary approach to determine the origins of deep microbial communities.”

Booth also provides expert services in property transaction, performing facility environmental assessments of multinational property portfolios, and routinely provides expert witness testimony related to surface water and groundwater quality. He holds BS and MS degrees in geological engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla (UMR), where he has also completed graduate studies in engineering management. Golder Associates is an employee-owned global firm specializing in ground engineering and environmental services.

Linda Lannen,
Chief Information Officer, Kleinfelder, San Diego, Calif.
Lannen brings with her more than 20 years of experience in operations management and team leadership, including international operations, and will oversee all IT infrastructures, enterprise systems and application development efforts at the company, a nationwide firm with more than 2,000 employee owners. Lannen is also expected to work to increase overall productivity and improve client delivery and service with the strategic use of technology. Most recently, Lannen was the vice president of information technology at MWH Global, Inc., where she held a variety of technology leadership positions including infrastructure management, strategic technology planning, and project and service management. She has also held management positions at XOR Inc. and U S West Advanced Technologies. “I’m thrilled to be a part of Kleinfelder's team and help contribute to our sustainability efforts across the country,” said Lannen. “Kleinfelder will be expanding the use of collaboration tools that enable our project teams to leverage best practices and lessons learned from projects all over the world in our redevelopment efforts. We also utilize green IT systems, such as virtual servers and videoconferencing, to a great degree in order to reduce the amount of travel, electricity, cooling and hardware we use on a daily basis.” Added Bill Siegel, Kleinfelder CEO:  “Linda’s depth of knowledge and experience will only serve to strengthen Kleinfelder’s reputation, particularly her international experience globalizing information technology systems.”

Lannen received her Executive MBA from the University of Denver, Daniels College of Business, which emphasizes ethics and leadership. She also earned a degree in Business Administration & Finance from Regis University and studied mathematics/actuarial science at the University of Iowa. Kleinfelder provides planning, engineering, scientific, technical and management solutions.