Team Q&A: Valerie Eacret – Senior Client Account Manager

With so many competing pressures causing market uncertainty in the electric utility industry, finding the right DERMS solutions has never been more important. From her commitment to nature or in helping connect clients with the tools they need to minimize operational costs, our new Senior Client Account Manager, Valerie Eacret, is here to make a difference. Join me in welcoming Valerie to the Virtual Peaker team!

How did your previous life prepare you for Virtual Peaker?

I’ve worked with utilities my whole career, either related to energy efficiency or DERMS. I’ve worked in a utility’s office, and I’ve worked with every type of utility. I’ve worked on every side of a utility rebate program– from program design and implementation, to outreach, to evaluation. I’m also an engineer, and I started out my career doing engineering work, but have found myself to be more of a heads up person than a heads down person- and I think my technical background will also be helpful here at Virtual Peaker.

Tell us about your role at Virtual Peaker.

I work with utilities to ensure they’re able to reliably and easily run rebate programs that help minimize the need to build more power plants, in ways that compensate and don’t inconvenience their customers. I make sure to bring a cooperative attitude towards our work, to work together to decarbonize and improve the flexibility of the grid.

How do you personally engage in sustainability efforts?

Most interestingly, by having a heat pump/heat pump water heater/solar thermal battery combo installed that allowed us to cut our gas line- the house is fully electrified now!

Most recently, by preserving nature by not killing the bird that started hitting our window repeatedly and waking us up… so far I’ve tried a few things to scare it away, but the results have been minimal so I’m about to contact the local wildlife center to see what suggestions they have.

The more typical ones also- you can often find me biking to the farmer’s market (year round markets are one of the many things I love about California, especially after having lived in New England)), eating seasonally, walking or biking instead of driving, composting, finding new owners for things I don’t need anymore, and generally being a conscious consumer.

What can you tell us about yourself?

I love being active outside with friends and family, I cook a lot, and I bake a lot of sourdough. I’ve been on four cross-country road trips, I have 5 states left to visit, and am a big fan of trips to National Parks. I’m a dog lover but am currently in the dog-mooching phase of life. I also love hanging out in the backyard around the fire pit with friends, and have been experimenting with using all the cooking attachments the fire pit came with.

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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