Team

Pulse Energy is led by CEO David Helliwell, whose career has spanned 3 continents and has been focused on the energy sector since 1994. Before starting Pulse Energy in 2006, David was an exploration geophysicist, a Paris-based management consultant to large multinational organizations and director of policy for a cabinet minister in the Canadian federal government. While with the Canadian government, David was responsible for reducing costs and improving environmental performance of 700 million square feet of office space across the country. David is a director of the Vancouver Board of Trade, an Action Canada Fellow, a member of the BC Cleantech CEO Alliance, and is on the Imagine BC advisory board. David and his wife Nancy have two young daughters.

Kevin Tate is the Vice President of Product Development. Prior to joining Pulse Kevin spent 5 years at Electronic Arts where he led EA’s animation central technology team as product manager and development director. Kevin also helped to introduce agile development and automated testing. Before EA Kevin worked at Alias (acquired by Autodesk) in Toronto, where he was Chief Product Architect. He led the introduction of agile at Alias, and his focus on process and architecture helped Alias to ship some innovative new products such as Sketchbook and Showcase and grow overall market share. Kevin is also the author of the book Sustainable Software Development which is published by Addison Wesley in their Agile Software Development series. Kevin started his career in computer networking and operating systems. Kevin lives with his wife Claudia and two daughters in North Vancouver, and their favourite vacations are as far away from cities as possible. In his spare time Kevin volunteers with Streamkeepers and is an avid cyclist.

Damir Hot leads Pulse Energy’s sales and field support teams. Since joining Pulse in 2008, Damir has worked with North America’s largest and most innovative utilities to deliver energy information software to their key accounts. An entrepreneur at heart, Damir’s roles prior to Pulse have been in product management, sales, field support, and engineering with early-stage Vancouver based technology companies. Damir lives in Vancouver with his wife, Angela, and is an avid tennis player and golfer.

Steve Jones, Vice President of Product Management, is responsible for leading the product management team at Pulse Energy. Steve has been with the company since 2007 and joined shortly after it was founded. He has experience implementing large energy efficiency projects in industrial settings as well as dealing with energy efficiency at a very small scale in advanced robots. While completing a degree in Engineering Physics, he led one of the highest ranking teams in the NASA Beam Power competition. Steve is also an active participant in the community. He has presented at the Lean Startup conference, has been a member of the Vancouver Board of Trade Sustainability Committee and has volunteered through the Vancouver School Board Mentorship Program. Steve is also an avid hiker and nature photographer and a Canadian national paper airplane champion.

Bruce Herzer is responsible for leading marketing and regulatory engagement at Pulse Energy. He brings fifteen years of experience in management consulting, operations and software development in the energy utility and telecommunications sectors. A certified project manager, Bruce was previously with Raleigh, NC-based consulting firm ScottMadden where he engaged with several of the largest US energy utilities on sourcing, human resource and shared services projects. He holds an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he concentrated in sustainable enterprise and technology management, and added college basketball to his list of favourite spectator sports. Bruce is an avid scuba diver and enjoys backpacking, squash and volleyball.

Bryan Anderson is responsible for managing Pulse Energy’s strategic alliance and reseller program. His career spans a variety of industries including Resort Real Estate, telecommunications, engineering consulting and clean technology. Prior to joining Pulse, Bryan provided management consulting services to local BC cleantech companies and spent 7 years as a financial, operations and strategic marketing leader with Intrawest. You can find Bryan spending time with his wife and daughter skiing on the slopes, downhill biking on the local mountains, or windsurfing in Oregon.

Harish Raisinghani leads an enthusiastic team dedicated to helping clients succeed. His team provides day-to-day support, training, engineering services, and high value energy analysis and insights. Prior to joining Pulse in 2010, Harish worked with a local industrial engineering consulting firm on energy efficiency projects. He is also a past president of the Vancouver chapter of Engineers Without Borders, and an active mentor with the Surrey school district. Harish is a space enthusiast, loves to play hockey, and occasionally piloting homemade flying machines for Red Bull Flugtag.

Bruce Cullen is Manager of Pulse Energy’s Remote Communities projects. He is an expert in the field of integrating Demand Side Management strategies and technologies to reduce power consumption and demand in Off-Grid communities. He led his team to the development and deployment of Canada’s first Micro Smart Grid in the remote First Nations community of Hartley Bay, BC. He is a founding member of the British Columbia First Nations Clean Energy Committee and coined the phrase ‘Energy Poverty to Energy Prosperity’ that is now being widely used in Canada in reference to the energy path forward for remote, off-grid Aboriginal communities. Prior to joining Pulse, Bruce led and co-founded Cullen Energy; which delivered Canada’s largest residential energy efficiency retrofit program.

Kenneth Peterson advises Pulse Energy on the utility sector and more broadly on North American energy policy issues. He currently chairs the Standards Oversight and Technology Committee of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, and was first elected to the Board of Trustees in 2006. Mr. Peterson is the former president and CEO of Powerex Corporation, a leading marketer of wholesale energy products and services in western Canada and the western United States. Prior to that he spent a good part of his career with the parent of Powerex, B.C. Hydro and Power Authority in a variety of planning and forecasting positions. He has a background in Resource Economics with degrees from UBC and Northwestern University.

Greg Wolfe is a special advisor to Pulse Energy in the area of company operations and all customer-serving functions. Greg brings Pulse 20+ years of experience in the high technology industry. Most recently he was the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Operations for Business Objects, a multi-billion dollar business intelligence software provider. In his time at Business Objects he helped lead the organization through hyper growth, creating the #1 Business Intelligence provider in the world with over $1Billion in revenues, with millions of licensed users and over 5000 employees. Greg is an active advisor to technology CEOs around the world, a board member at Colligo Networks, and a director of the BC Technology Industry Association.

Chuck Clark was originally attracted to Pulse Energy by the opportunity to apply technology to make a real impact on climate change. As a technical advisor, Chuck brings over sixteen years of scaling and operations expertise to the team. He regularly shares his pragmatic sense of meeting customer needs with the leadership and technology teams, based on his experience securing, scaling and evolving the systems behind some the world’s most popular sites, such as Chief Software Architect at Orbitz.com and Cheaptickets.com. Chuck is a Chicago transplant to Vancouver, regularly wearing a Blackhawks jersey and reminding Canucks fans how it feels to hoist the Stanley Cup.

Brent Bowker plays an active role in training, energy competitions, pilot program management and general customer support. Brent joined Pulse in 2010 coming from research roles at the National Research Council and the University of Waterloo. Additionally, he has had the opportunity to manage a coffee shop and perform a marketing role for a home energy audit company. When he’s not enjoying the surrounding mountains or waterways, Brent can be found playing tennis or on his bike.

As Deployment Services Lead, Fritz Lapastora’s primary role is the management and coordination of deployment for projects in Canada as well as providing technical support for all customers. Prior to joining the company in late 2010, he lead in energy audits and provided field support for a local energy consulting firm. On his spare time he devotes himself to ice hockey, yoga, ultimate frisbee, and the occasional DJ gig.

Greg Dennis manages several special projects including Pulse Energy’s role in the BC Hydro Continuous Optimization Program, the first utility-wide retro-commissioning program of its kind in North America. He recently completed his Master of Engineering in Clean Energy Engineering from the University of British Columbia, where he completed a final research project on demand response applications in the remote community of Hartley Bay. In his spare time Greg enjoys skiing, rock climbing and collecting vinyl records.