Betsy Wood Knapp, Chairman of the Board and Executive Committee member, is an entrepreneur who has been investing and supporting early stage growth companies for 33 year. Ms. Knapp founded Los Angeles-based BigPicture Investors, LLC to finance West Coast startups with patented enabling technologies. She has been a founder or CEO of five software and new media companies and Ms. Knapp has extensive management experience in creating strategic direction for business growth. At the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, she is a founder of the Entrepreneur's Hall, serves on the Board of Visitors, is a repeat guest lecturer in the MBA program, and established the Knapp Competition for excellence in business planning and venture initiation. Ms. Knapp is also a founding member of the Committee of 200, a highly selective international organization of women entrepreneurs and corporate executives. Ms. Knapp received a B.A. in economics from Wellesley College, where she also serves as a Trustee.

G. A. Ben Binninger, Chief Executive Officer, has over 30 years experience in the fuels and chemicals industry. Mr. Binninger's professional background includes leading both large and small technologically sophisticated process and service businesses, including up to a billion dollar global businesses for ARCO, Hercules and Rio Tinto Borax. He brings a combination of global management, strategic positioning, financial and operating expertise in industries such as chemicals, energy, materials, environmental, mining, and defense. Mr. Binninger has served as Director of KCET - Community Television of Southern California, Chairman of the Institute of Cooperation in Environmental Management, and taught international business management at UCLA. He also serves on the board of The Harvard Business School Association of Southern California. Mr. Binninger has a Bachelor degree in Chemical Engineering from Manhattan College and a Master's in Business Administration from the Harvard Business School.

Richard A. Redoglia has more than 25 years of experience in the energy/finance industry including long tenures with two global financial institutions, running their energy institutional brokerage operations. He currently serves as Executive Director of Global Energy Horizons (GEH), a strategic investment firm focused on businesses within the energy industry. Prior to GEH, he was the Director of Global Energy Futures Group for ABN AMRO Inc. During his 15-year tenure with Merrill Lynch, Mr. Redoglia rose to the position of Director of the Energy Commodities Group. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara with added emphasis on the foreign policy of the U.S. and the histories of the Middle East and Russia.

Murli Tolaney is Chairman of Montgomery Watson Harza (MWH), a privately owned global environmental engineering, management, technology and construction company. Mr. Tolaney joined MWH in 1973 as a Senior Engineer and in 1992 became its Chief Executive Officer, a position he held until 2001 when he assumed his current post of Chairman of this 130 office worldwide, 6,000 employee firm. Mr. Tolaney has a B.S. in Civil Engineering and M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Kansas and an AMP from Harvard Business School.

David Mandel is an established private venture capital investor focusing on early-stage technology companies based in Southern California. He was a seed investor in Broadcom, Innovent Systems (acquired by Broadcom) and Access360 (acquired by IBM), and has co-invested with established venture capital firms including Crosspoint Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, SunAmerica Ventures and Constellation Ventures, which is a division of Bear Sterns. Prior to becoming active in venture capital, he served on the research staff at the University of Toronto, Department of Biophysics, where he focused on molecular simulations. Mr. Mandel received his Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania.

David Nazarian is the founding member of Smart Technology Ventures. Mr. Nazarian is a successful entrepreneur who has funded and built a number of technology companies in his nearly 20 years of operational and investment activities. Mr. Nazarian serves on the board of directors for Poseidon, FutureTrade Technologies, Lucix and Allard Industries. He is a member of the board of governors and the investment committee for both Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the UCLA Foundation. He received his MBA from the University of Southern California.