Waring Succeeds Bicker as CEO at CleanTech San Diego

Lisa Bicker has tendered her resignation as CEO of CleanTech San Diego, the non-profit industry group that has helped organize and focus regional efforts to stimulate sustainable business practices and build on San Diego’s emerging capabilities as an innovation cluster in cleantech and renewable energy technologies.

Bicker, who was the group’s first CEO, wrote in an undated letter to CleanTech members that she had always planned a short tenure, and wanted to spend more time with her family. “In just under four years, we have grown from nine to 105 members and from approximately $60,000 in annual revenues to close to $1 million,” Bicker says. Her resignation is effective Aug. 1, although she plans to continue working with the group as a consultant on several strategic projects, including Smart City San Diego and the Regional Smart Grid Working Group.

CleanTech board members today approved the nomination of Jim Waring, a co-founder and chairman of CleanTech San Diego, as Bicker’s successor, according to a spokesperson for the group. Waring, a real estate investor, lawyer, environmentalist (and San Diego Xconomist), served from 2006 to 2007 as the City of San Diego’s deputy chief operating officer for land use and economic development. During his tenure with the city, Waring became a lightning rod in a controversy over the construction of a high-rise office building near the boundary of San Diego’s airport for civil aviation, Montgomery Field.

In a statement issued through CleanTech San Diego, Waring thanked Bicker for her service, and said, “While we all wish Lisa was remaining as CEO, we respect her decision to redefine her role with CleanTECH San Diego. The best part is that Lisa will be staying with the organization on a part time, project specific basis.”

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.