ENERGY STAR Consumer Electronics Podcast Host and Speaker Bios

October 16, 2006

Host Bio

Andrew Fanara, US EPA

Andrew Fanara manages the ENERGY STAR Product Specifications Development Team. ENERGY STAR is part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Protection Partnership Division. The ENERGY STAR Program is intended to help businesses and individuals protect the environment by identifying products with superior energy efficiency and water savings.

Mr. Fanara’s team is responsible for writing product specifications and for teaming with manufacturers to encourage the design, manufacture, and sale of products that meet them. To date, more than 50 product categories have been created for the residential and commercial sectors. Over 1.5 billion ENERGY STAR products have been sold in the US, and in 2005, these products will realize electricity savings in excess of $6.5 billion.

Mr. Fanara’s team also manages the program’s national energy model which is used to track energy consumption, savings and market penetration data for ENERGY STAR products sold in the US. Lastly, Mr. Fanara is responsible for managing the implementation of a product compliance testing verification initiative and for managing policy coordination with countries using ENERGY STAR in their markets. This includes Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Canada, China, and the European Union.

Previously in his tenure with the agency, Mr. Fanara worked on the EPA’s Green Lights Program, which assisted commercial enterprises with the implementation of energy-efficient lighting upgrades. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin — Madison and has worked for the EPA for more than 10 years.

Guest Bios

Edie Lau, The Sacramento Bee

Edie Lau is a staff writer at The Sacramento Bee, a daily newspaper in California’s capital, where she reports on science, energy and the environment, with a focus on climate change and consumption. Her work has been recognized by the National Academies of Science and the Scripps Howard Foundation. Before joining The Bee in 1997, Edie reported for newspapers in upstate New York and Maine, writing about topics such as garbage, overfishing and island culture. She has a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley.

Noah Horowitz, NRDC

Noah Horowitz is a Senior Scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading advocacy group dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. At NRDC, Noah works on policies and projects related to reducing the energy use of buildings and the equipment inside them. Recently he led a world wide effort to increase the efficiency of the little black box power adapters that come with all sorts of products in the home ranging from cell phones, computer printers, to electric toothbrushes. These efforts will help cut the world’s electric bill by several billion dollars and prevent millions of tons of climate change emissions.

Prior to joining NRDC, Noah was the Corporate Environmental Manager for the Quaker Oats Company. Mr. Horowitz has a BS in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a MS in Environmental Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT).

Mark J. Sharp, Panasonic Corporation of North America

Mark Sharp is a Group Manager for the Corporate Environmental Department (CED) of Panasonic Corporation of North America, and is based in the company’s Washington, DC, office. His responsibilities include management of legislative and regulatory environmental issues, outreach to external environmental constituencies, and development of environmental marketing strategies.

Currently, Mr. Sharp serves as Chair of the Energy Efficiency Working Group for the Consumer Electronics Association, the leading industry group representing CE manufacturers and retailers.

Previously, Mr. Sharp served in Panasonic’s Government and Public Affairs Office, handling a number of legislative issues as well as community outreach and liaison with key industry trade associations.

Jeremy A. Kaplan, PC Magazine

After several years at PC Magazine covering peripherals — a diverse category including monitors, printers, hard drives, graphics cards, scanners, and more — Jeremy Kaplan succumbed to his inner geek, launching the spin-off publication ExtremeTech Magazine. During the same time, he created a newsstand-only one-off named DigitalLife, after the company’s increasingly popular event. Mr. Kaplan is currently an executive editor at PC Magazine.

Paul O’Donovan, Gartner Research

Paul O’Donovan is a principal analyst in Gartner Dataquest’s Semiconductor research group covering the technologies of consumer electronics. His worldwide research responsibilities cover a wide range of electronics found in white goods to digital TVs and home networking. Mr. O’Donovan specializes in digital video technologies for the mass consumer market including video compression and display technologies as well as new consumer electronics trends such as IPTV technologies and video based home networking.

Before joining Gartner, Mr. O’Donovan worked at National Semiconductor in their UK and German headquarters where he was responsible for its EMEA digital logic marketing through distribution. Mr. O’Donovan has worked in the semiconductor industry for 20 years and studied sales and marketing with the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the United Kingdom.