The cleanest and least expensive energy is the energy you never have to consume

Meet Daniel Arneman

Daniel joined American Efficient when the company acquired PlotWatt, where he was VP of Analytics. Prior to PlotWatt, Daniel managed the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Climate Action Program, working to make the campus climate-neutral by 2050. He holds a PhD from UNC Chapel Hill and a BS from the University of Kentucky. In his spare time, Daniel likes to get his hands dirty in his permaculture garden in Hillsborough, where he lives with his wife and two sons.

Meet Sterling Bowen

Sterling Bowen is the Senior Director of residential efficiency programs at American Efficient.

Since joining American Efficient in 2016, Sterling has worked to originate and manage incentive programs for efficient consumer products. Prior to his role with AE, Sterling worked in the solar sector in an EPC sales and account management capacity. Over almost a decade he was involved in implementing distributed energy projects throughout the mid-Atlantic for utilities, federal agencies, and commercial businesses. Sterling also spent time in the public sector with the North Carolina Energy Office, where he managed internal and external communications. Sterling attended UNCC as a Cameron Scholar, where he graduated with Interdisciplinary Honors. He is a father of two who lives in Raleigh with his spouse, Jessica, where he enjoys kendo, ACC basketball and the thriving food culture of the Triangle.

Meet Bo Clayton

Bo Clayton serves the organization as Chief Investment Officer, where he oversees portfolio marketing and structured finance functions.

Bo also serves as Partner of Modern Energy, a holding company with businesses focused on energy efficiency, distributed generation, demand response, and energy storage. Prior to joining American Efficient, Bo held various marketing, origination, and finance roles at Citigroup, Credit Suisse, and JPMorgan, where he provided strategic planning, risk management, and liquidity services to the firms’ clients in the power sector. He holds an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an AB in economics from Harvard College, where he played varsity soccer. Bo lives in Durham with his wife, two sons, and two dogs.

Meet Pete Curtice

Pete Curtice serves as Chief Executive Officer for American Efficient

Prior to joining American Efficient, Pete held various leadership roles at SAS Institute and Opower, where he led energy efficiency and demand response sales for Investor Owned Utilities. He is the past Chair of the Board for the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance and has served on the boards for the Special Olympics North Carolina and Urban Ministries of Wake County. Pete holds an MBA from the Fuqua School at Duke University and BS from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Raleigh with his partner Maria and his three kids – Jack, Noah and Barrett.

Meet Tyler Curtis

Tyler Curtis serves as the Head of Research and Development for American Efficient. He is also a Partner at Modern Energy.

Prior to joining American Efficient, Tyler led research, data science and product development teams at Capital One, Opower and Amazon. Most recently, Tyler led new product development at Capital One Labs, supporting the bank’s digital transformation by creating learning products focused on software development, machine learning and data engineering for 9000+ technology staff. As a founding member of Opower, Tyler built the Data Science practice. He invented the algorithmic underpinnings of Opower’s energy efficiency software business, securing the company’s first three patents. Tyler holds a BSE from Duke University. Tyler lives in Durham, NC with his wife, two sons and a remarkable three-legged dog.

Meet Luke Fishback

Luke Fishback is the Senior Director of Market Operations at American Efficient.

He has worked in energy analytics since 2007. Prior to the recent acquisition by American Efficient, Luke served as CEO of PlotWatt. Under his leadership, PlotWatt developed the first hardware agnostic Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring algorithms in the world and grew to be the leading provider of energy analytics for several of the largest multi-location enterprises in the United States. Luke is a graduate of Dartmouth College with two undergraduate degrees in engineering and a masters in engineering management. Prior to starting PlotWatt, Luke was an aerospace engineer at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, where he held leadership roles on a number of classified and unclassified programs, mostly associated with things that leave the earth’s atmosphere.

Meet Angela Fox

Angela Fox is the Head of Market Operations at American Efficient. She is also a Partner at Modern Energy.

Prior to joining American Efficient, Angela led business development teams at an international non-profit on over 75 bids from 40+ clients ranging from $400K to $750M, including large anchor USAID and BMGF projects. She led diversification efforts through managing collaborative efforts with corporate strategy on competitive funding landscapes and business opportunity planning as well as overhauling the strategic small bidding process for low dollar projects with new funders. Angela also worked in operations for a defense consulting firm overseeing OCONUS contractors on work with DOD, DOS, and foreign ministries. She graduated from Duke University with distinction and now lives in Durham with her husband and son.

Meet Meg Kelly

Meg Kelly is the Senior Director of Commercial EE

Meet Elena Mannion

Elena Mannion is a Product Operations Analyst, where she analyzes efficient products for inclusion in programs.

Meet Shayne Miel

Shayne is a Director of Software Engineering at American Efficient, where he helps build the data infrastructure that keeps our business running.

Meet Kara Mountcastle

Kara Mountcastle is a Program Manager at American Efficient.

She also serves on the board of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. Prior to joining American Efficient, she worked in project management at a financial services consulting firm, and as a field organizer during the 2016 election. Kara graduated with honors from Davidson College, and equally splits her basketball allegiance between the Wildcats and UNC Tar Heels.

Meet Boris Nikolic

Mr. Nikolic is a Director at American Efficient focused on portfolio marketing and risk management.

Prior to joining American Efficient, he was a Senior Investment Associate at Cambridge Associates, where he advised nonprofit institutions (foundations and endowments), pension funds, and private wealth clients on investment portfolio construction across all asset classes, investment manager due diligence and selection, and other investment-related activities. Prior to his tenure at Cambridge Associates, he was a Sales and Trading Analyst for Citigroup Inc., where he held roles in credit research, institutional equity sales, and corporate and institutional foreign exchange sales. He graduated from Duke University as a Robertson Scholar.

Meet John Piehler

John joined American Efficient full time in May of 2020 after an eight-month internship with Modern Energy Group in 2018. He graduated from UNC – Chapel Hill with a B.S. in Business Administration and a minor in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE). As a GLOBE scholar, John traveled alongside an international cohort to attend business school in Copenhagen and Hong Kong for a semester each. Outside of work, John enjoys listening to music, reading, and watching soccer.

Meet Locke Raper

Locke Raper is the Senior Director, New Business Development for American Efficient. Prior to joining American Efficient, Locke managed business development at GridBridge where he led sales of the company’s energy efficiency applications into production agriculture, solar development and other industry sectors. Passionate about sustainability, Locke has helped design and launch a number of innovative projects related to resource conservation during his career. He is active with Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) and a former member of the Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster Board of Advisors. Locke holds an International MBA from the University of South Carolina and an AB in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Raleigh with his wife and their two rascals.

Meet Philip Semanchuk

Philip Semanchuk is a Director of Software Engineering at American Efficient. Philip focuses on system and database architecture. He has 30 years of software and systems development experience, mostly with companies in North Carolina but also elsewhere in the USA and in Sweden. Philip holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the Pennsylvania State University. He lives in a co-housing community in Carrboro, NC.

Meet John Silkey

John Silkey is the Senior Director of Industrial EE Programs at American Efficient

John originates and manages incentive programs for efficient industrial systems. Prior to his role at AmEff John spent eight years leading utility energy efficiency portfolio strategy and program design as well as staffing, strategy and account management for a startup management consultancy. He also currently serves as Board Chair for the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance. John holds a BA from Dartmouth College and an MSc from Blekinge Tekniska Hogskola. He lives in Portland, OR with his wife Jenn and spends his free time writing or somewhere on the water in the Cascade Mountains.

Meet April Smith

April Smith is Director of Finance.

Prior to joining American Efficient, April worked in Accounting for Chesapeake Energy, a large american petroleum and natural gas exploration company for 20 years. She is experienced in financial operations, compliance and managing processes in scale up organizations. April is a recent transplant to North Carolina and lives in Raleigh with her husband and son and enjoys spending time outdoors either hiking or unwinding at the beach.

Meet Tim Smith

Tim is a Senior Director of Trading at American Efficient. Tim first joined American Efficient as an intern in 2018, while studying at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He remained with the team through the second year of his MBA studies. Tim then took a break for a year to dip his toe in the strategy consulting waters with Altman Solon, a Boston-based consulting firm with global reach focused on the TMT sectors. 

Meet David Storelli

David Storelli is a Senior Research Analyst at American Efficient, where he supports the development of new and existing programs.

He is also currently working with Modern Energy to develop energy access solutions in conjunction with the IEEE Empower a Billion Lives competition. David has a BS in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University, where he was an Undergraduate Research Scholar at the FREEDM Systems Center. He is enjoying living in Durham, and spends most weekends playing music of some kind.

Meet Betty Watson

Betty Watson is Senior Director of Policy and Market Design for Modern Energy. Ms. Watson’s work includes developing strategies and policies for energy efficiency, distributed generation, demand response, and energy storage. Before joining Modern Energy, Ms. Watson led state and wholesale market policy as Senior Manager of Energy Policy at Tesla,  advised the Commission as part of the Office of Energy Policy and Innovation at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and worked on energy regulatory issues in the United States, European Union, China, and India as Energy and Environment Fellowship with the Regulatory Assistance Project. She received her Master of Environmental Management degree, in the Energy Concentration, from The Nicholas School at Duke University.