Team Q&A: Myles Marinez – Sales Executive

From cooking to helping clients leverage the power of distributed energy resources, a love of nature and the arts is only the start for our new Sales Executive, Myles Marinez. Join us in welcoming Myles to the Virtual Peaker team!

How did your previous life prepare you for Virtual Peaker? 

In my last role I was an AE at a company (Budderfly) focused on bringing energy efficient infrastructure to commercial property owners – mainly restaurant owners and franchisees.  While implementing our suite of solutions, we were simultaneously establishing some infrastructure for virtual power plants (VPPs) with the equipment being installed and utility partnerships.  

Conversations were often centered around measuring energy consumption, what changes can reduce what percentage of usage, and translating that into meaningful success for the property/business owners.  This gave me a lot of exposure to basic demand side management methods, energy arbitrage, and was my first exposure to the concept of VPPs.  I’m eager to grow my knowledge around managing demand response programs and how utilities can utilize distributed energy resources (DERs).

Tell us about your role at Virtual Peaker. 

I’m an Account Executive on the Sales Team, based in the Denver metro. My focus is developing and opening up new business across the West Coast, targeting coops and munis in the territory. 

How do you personally engage in sustainability efforts? 

Cooking is a huge hobby of mine, and my partner has quite the green thumb.  At this point, because of our natural interests, her and I basically run a zero waste kitchen – you might be surprised how many food byproducts can be used for a different dish or some sort of fertilizer.  

I’ve also been volunteering with a few organizations locally for the past 4-5yrs working on trail maintenance for hiking trails and climbing access around CO.  It’s a fun way to spend the weekend, far from relaxing, but incredibly rewarding work.  There are a few groups I make annual donations to that lobby for policy or lead larger initiatives than I’m able to launch out of my backyard. 

What can you tell us about yourself?

Anything you want to know!  I’m first generation American, with parents from the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. In my free time I’d consider myself a steward of outdoor recreation and wilderness exploration.  Whether it’s long rock climbing routes, back country skiing, bike packing, or just going out for a walk in the park – I’m passionate about taking the actions we can to preserve the environment and enjoying nature thoroughly.  In college I was in a very short lived band. I’ve got a cat named Thomas Lebowski who really ties the room together, and an Australian Shepard named Kobe who is way too smart for his own good. 

About The Author

Bill is a serial entrepreneur with a PhD from UC Berkeley in Controls and Artificial Intelligence and 10 years of experience with high performance residential energy management and connected appliances. He was previously at GE as an Advanced Systems Engineer in the Connected Home Software Group, but left that role in May 2014 to pursue entrepreneurship full time.

Bill grew up in Louisville and returned with his family in 2010 after a long stint in the San Francisco Bay Area. He loves Louisville and is working to make it a better and more attractive city for high tech startups.

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