John Paul (JP) McNeill, Chief Executive Officer
Mr. McNeill, CEO, has unique experience working with public agencies, nonprofits, consumers and the private sector. Mr. McNeill has held a number of senior level positions as Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Sales. For 8 years, Mr. McNeill was CFO and Vice President of Sales at Kintera, Inc., a software provider to public agencies and nonprofits. Kintera was one of the first companies to provide online communities where consumers could connect with each other for the purposes of donating, advocating, volunteering or making purchases. Mr. McNeill was part of a team which grew online transactions over a five year period to more than $1 billion and grew online registered users over the same time period to more than 55 million people. Mr. McNeill worked with clients such as UNICEF, the American Cancer Society, Special Olympics and Habitat for Humanity.
Prior to Renovate America, Mr. McNeill worked at SunEdison, North America's largest solar energy service provider, in business development. At SunEdison, Mr. McNeill worked with utilities, cities, public agencies and commercial entities to develop solar photovoltaic projects and programs. SunEdison has installed more solar PV systems than any other developer in California. Public agency clients include the State of California, the City of San Diego, City of Oakland, Fairfield Suisun Sewer District and California State University school system.
Mr. McNeill started his career as a Certified Public Accountant with Ernst & Young in 1992 and worked in both the San Diego, CA and Glasgow, Scotland offices. Mr. McNeill graduated with high honors from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in Business Administration.
Nick Fergis, Operations and Technology
Mr. Fergis is a true information technology pioneer, having helped change the way scores of the Global 1000 companies view and manage their IT organizations. Prior to cofounding Renovate America, Mr. Fergis was the cofounder of Kintana, Inc., the company that commercialized the space of IT Governance to many of the world's largest organizations.
Fergis was instrumental in building Kintana's process reengineering oriented service organization as well as designing, developing, marketing and selling Kintana's product line. Fergis incorporated Kintana in 1995 and co-led the sale of the company in 2003 to Mercury Interactive for $225 million. From 2003 to present, in varying capacities as an angel investor, Fergis has led several startup and early stage companies thru critical milestones, such companies as: Droplet, Inc., Magnetic Torque International, and Live Square Security are, or have been, among his portfolio.
From 1992 to 1995, Mr. Fergis worked at Price Waterhouse where he began as a Senior Consultant, and left three years later as a contract Senior Manager, at which point he cofounded Kintana, Inc. At Price Waterhouse, Mr. Fergis held key technology management roles leading world-wide, multi-hundred million dollar Enterprise Requirements Planning (ERP) system rollouts at: Dupont Merck Pharmaceuticals, Western Digital Corporation, Silicon Graphics and Lincoln Electric. At Price Waterhouse, Mr. Fergis led the redesign and optimization of the partnership's long standing legacy System Management Methodology (SMM) for Open Systems Implementations.
Prior to Price Waterhouse, Fergis spent two years as CIO of US Hosiery Corporation where he was responsible for the design, development, implementation and management of a custom MRP and Distribution system and packaged financial system. Mr. Fergis received a B.S. in Applied Math/Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1988, paying his way through college as a software developer for DataWorks, Inc., which he cofounded in Pittsburgh, PA.
Tom Hemmings, Finance
Mr. Hemmings has over 20 years of experience in commercial banking and residential lending. Prior to joining Renovate America, he was the CFO of the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority. In this role, he was part of a four person Executive Team that was responsible for the strategic and operational success of the firm. His responsibilities included management of the $600 million investment portfolio and $3 billion of debt issuances, as well as traditional forecasting and budgeting. In addition to the traditional finance roles, he supervised the Information Technology, Loan Servicing, and Human Resources departments.
Mr. Hemmings is well versed in strategic planning, growth performance, negotiation, and profit enhancement. He has authored strategies for turnaround, market contraction, and growth opportunities. He has negotiated numerous bank credit facilities, as well the public offering of debt.
Mr. Hemmings is a Certified Public Accountant, and a graduate of the University of Colorado.
Dean Hollander, Marketing
Mr. Hollander is both an entrepreneur and a marketer. Mr. Hollander is the former CEO and founder of Involve, Inc., an award winning interactive communication agency. Mr. Hollander has also helped a variety of different companies with their strategic business development and communication tactics including the newly formed $8 billion BP Alternative Energy, Starbucks, Coca Cola, MGM, Warner Brothers, and a number of start-ups. His expertise is applicable to overall communications strategy, leveraging new media technologies, effective brand building through interactive experiences, and developing unique strategic partnerships between companies and organizations in different industries that can benefit from one another's communications initiatives.
Scott McKinlay, Legal
Mr. McKinlay has been practicing law for the last 25 years. Prior to Renovate America, from 2004 to 2008, Mr. McKinlay was the Chief Legal Officer and Senior Vice President/Corporate Development for E-LOAN, Inc. Mr. McKinlay managed relationships with auto and mortgage regulators throughout the country, developed a 50-state regulatory compliance program and structured E-LOAN's intellectual property development and protection program. Mr. McKinlay has held a number of senior level positions including General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer. From 1991 to 2000, he was the General Counsel for First Nationwide Bank, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company, and its successor Granite Management Corporation. From 1985 until 1991, he practiced law at Folger, Levin & Kahn in San Francisco and Mayer, Brown & Rowe in Chicago. Mr. McKinlay received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley and his law degree from University of San Francisco, where he was the editor-in-chief of the law review and the Judge Harold J. Haley scholar.
Howard Green, Program Design
Mr. Green is responsible for managing the design and operations of the HERO Program in concert with Mr. Fergis on the technology side.
Howard Green spent 21 years at Southern California Edison, 14 of which were in renewable energy and energy efficiency posts, including program administrator for the California Solar Initiative and the Self Generation Incentive Program. Together, the both programs had a budget in excess of $1 billion. Mr. Green was responsible for developing long-term strategies, implementing controls, maintaining customer satisfaction, and monitoring results for both programs. Mr. Green served as an expert in self generation and renewable energy programs before the California Senate, the California Public Utilities Commission and other program administrators and trade associations.
Prior to joining Renovate America, Mr. Green was Director of Utility Programs for SunEdison where he directed the development and implementation of SunEdison's Utility Program for the Western United States.
Outside Directors
Tom Conway
Mr. Conway has 20 years of experience in forming and launching successful emerging companies. In 1991 he founded Technology Consultants International who specialized in recruiting human and financial capital for start up companies. During the rapid growth of the internet, Mr. Conway participated in the development of several early stage companies that became highly visible public companies. In 1996, Mr Conway joined the founders of Ariba (ARBA Nasdaq) as Director of Corporate Recruiting where he was responsible for the overall recruiting effort of the first 125 employees. Subsequent to assisting in the launch of Ariba, Mr. Conway recruited key start up teams at Websense(WBSN Nasdaq), Upshot that was acquired by Seibel/Oracle (ORCL Nasdaq), Centor (acquired by Matrix One/Dassault) and Kintana (acquired by Mercury Interactive/HP (HP Nasdaq). Mr. Conway was on the Board of Directors at Centor. Prior to TCI, Mr. Conway held positions in sales and sales management in the software and recruiting industries. Mr. Conway has a B.A. in Marketing from Saint Mary's University in Minnesota.
Jim Probst
Mr. Probst has held several senior management positions in early stage, high growth, private and public entities, including CEO, President and CFO. He has extensive experience in the operation and execution of high growth business strategies, with growth in excess of 100% annually. On several occasions he has taken companies from start-up through the commercialization of a new technology, growing from no revenue to $20+ million. He has led the capitalization of these companies through both public and private equity offerings and both secured and unsecured private debt offerings.
Mr. Probst's current venture, Quality Home Maintenance, Inc. (QHM), is a residential HVAC contracting company founded in 2005. In four years, through effective consumer marketing, sales training and product offering, QHM has become the largest residential HVAC contractor in Arizona.