FUPWG Session 2: Best Practices and Resources  

Denise Funkhouser is Director of the Energy Division at the General Services Administration (GSA), which has an inventory of over 371 million square feet in over 8,800 assets. She is responsible for energy management, procurement of utilities, and the identification and testing of emerging building technologies in GSA's portfolio. Her focus is on maximizing energy efficiency and energy savings.

Pam Griffith is currently assigned as the Director for Installation Energy at Defense Logistics Agency Energy in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. In this capacity, she provides centralized oversight and management of more than $5 billion in natural gas, electricity, coal, renewable energy, energy performance and utility service contracts supporting the installation energy needs of over 200 U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and federal civilian customers across the U.S. and overseas. Ms. Griffith began her career with DLA Energy in 1989 and has held various positions throughout the organization. She is Level III certified in contracting under the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act and is a member of the Defense Acquisition Corps. She is a graduate of Virginia Tech with a Bachelor's Degree in Management and a Master's in Business Administration.

Deb Vasquez is the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) technical lead for the Federal Energy Management Program's (FEMP) utility energy service contract team (UESC). She provides technical support, training, and resource development for federal government energy projects that leverage utility industry capabilities and private financing to improve federal government facilities infrastructure.

Catherine Johnson has over 30 years of experience with government environmental, fleet, and energy programs. She currently works on the Performance Contracting Team for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) overseeing development and implementation of VA's alternatively financed energy projects. She is the primary liaison for performance contracting in Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs) 7, 8, 9, 12, and 16. Catherine earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and a M.S. in Engineering Management from the University of Maryland.

Crystall Merlino, LEED Green Associate, is currently the director for resilience, sustainability, and energy management at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As the director of this program, she is responsible for implementing policy and guidance for DHS on resilience, sustainability, and energy/water related matters. Over the past 20 years, she has led and supported large-scale government, sustainability, energy, and environmental programs and projects providing leadership, mentorship, contract management, research, and technical support to government and private clients. Crystall is a chapter member of the National Capital Region, U.S. Green Building Council, and sat on the board as president (2002) and secretary (2000); she was one of the original founding members and board member for the Building Commissioning Association and is currently member of the Women's Council on Energy and Environment.

Sharon Conger has worked for the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Public Building Service since 1989. Sharon began in the Public Buildings Service as a realty contracting officer. Sharon has spent seven years as a business center manager providing oversight of daily operations for the state of Colorado. Sharon's GSA experience encompasses a wide range of GSA activities including property management, acquisition/contracting, asset management, real estate acquisition, project management, and financial management. In 2012, Sharon moved into her current role as the National Program Manager for ESPCs in GSA's Central Office Facilities Management, Energy Division, and has awarded more than $585,000,000 of ESPC contracts since that time. Sharon graduated from Colorado State University with a dual degree in business administration and Psychology. She lives in Colorado with her husband and has two daughters.

Mr. Kirshenberg advises clients in the acquisition, selling, leasing, and development of domestic and international energy and public-private partnership transactions. He works on all phases of projects including financing, development, operations, legislative authority development, federal agency policy, procurement and budgetary scoring, and other issues. He has closed over $16 billion of such transactions representing federal agencies, state and local governments, green banks, lenders, investors, and developers. In the energy arena, specific projects include energy savings performance contracts (ESPC) and utility energy service contracts (UESC), smart-grid, battery storage, smart-house demonstrations, photo-voltaic (PV), low-flow turbine generation, wind, SMR projects, co and tri-generation projects, and transmission lines. Further, he has worked on the securitization of pools of energy production and energy savings contracts for lenders, investors, state green banks, and developers. He has written several books for the U.S. Department of Energy on federal agency projects.

Mr. Oakley is a registered municipal advisor principal and has advised on a wide variety of energy and transportation infrastructure transactions, many of which employed innovative financing and delivery approaches. Mr. Oakley is recognized as an expert in assisting federal agencies, state and local governments and corporations with project development, financing, and credit analyses. Over the course of his career, Mr. Oakley has advised on over $50 billion in energy and infrastructure projects and possesses in depth knowledge of the credit criteria utilized by rating agencies and lenders for public private partnership financings. Mr. Oakley has also served as an advisor to bond trustees and lenders in assessing options for troubled infrastructure projects in bankruptcy. Before joining JLL via acquisition in 2018, Mr. Oakley was a Principal at Scully Capital Services, Inc. for over 23 years where he led the firm's lender due diligence and public private partnership advisory practice.