JC Shore – CEO

JC Shore is the founder and CEO of Circular Energy, one of the fastest-growing downstream solar solution providers in the southern United States.  He actively directs the company’s expansion strategy and execution of its service & financing platform across both residential and commercial markets.  Prior to Circular Energy, JC served as Vice President of Sales for Amdocs, a $5B publicly-traded Enterprise Software company serving utility and communications clients, West Coast Managing Partner of BusinessEdge Solutions, a boutique technology consulting company later acquired by EMC, and management consulting roles for nearly six years at both Accenture and Ernst & Young.  JC graduated from the University of Texas with a BBA in Finance.

Raj Shah – CMO

Raj leads our corporate marketing efforts with a keen analytical eye towards marketing and sales performance metrics. He also serves on our Board, as he has since 2010. As an entrepreneur, he has been a founder or early executive in several Austin and Silicon Valley based start-ups and emerging-growth companies. Raj has served as CMO of NComputing, the leader in virtual desktop computing, as well as CMO at ClearCube. Prior to these entrepreneurial endeavors, Raj was an Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company, where he advised Fortune 500 companies on strategy, restructuring, product design, marketing, and organization design in the computer, retail, and manufacturing and entertainment sectors. He began his professional career at the Federal Reserve Bank and General Binding Corporation. Raj received his MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management (Northwestern) and B.S. in Accountancy from LSU.

Erik Norwood – President, CURB

Erik serves as President of Curb, our energy management business unit.  Previously, Erik worked for an Austin-based venture capital firm conducting research and analysis for target investments in the smart-grid sector. Before that, he spent four years building satellites as a Mechanical Systems Engineer for Boeing’s Classified Programs Development Center.  He obtained his MBA from the University of Texas with a focus on CleanTech and Entrepreneurship, has a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from USC and his undergraduate degree in Science, Technology and Society from Pitzer College in Claremont, CA.

Jennifer Love – President, Residential

Jennifer plays a vital role in providing complete oversight of our residential division across each of our markets. She has had the unique opportunity to also participate in or lead 3 of our departments during the past several years, including engineering, sales, and operations. Jennifer originally joined Circular after being recruited from a medium sized, high-end architecture firm in Texas where she designed and project managed both residential and commercial projects. For over two years, she served as an Environmental Conservation Engineer in the United States Peace Corps in Central America. She graduated from Texas A&M with High Honors in Architecture and Environmental Design.

Vincent Guerrero – President, Commercial

Vincent oversees all commercial responsibilities of our organization from technology selection and financing partners to new business development and existing client relations. As employee number two at Circular Energy, Vincent has laid his fingerprint on almost every aspect of our organization. He is responsible for shaping the strategy, design, and quality for both our engineering and implementation teams, and directs knowledge sharing between clients, partners, and our staff. He spent his early career as a project engineer for a cryogenic production and distribution company in the Dallas area. Vincent holds his degree in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University.

Larry Speck

Larry Speck has gained considerable national and international recognition for his work as an architect, an architectural critic, an academic and a teacher. His professional work includes such Texas landmarks as Austin Bergstrom International Airport, Austin Convention Center (both phases) and the architecture for Discovery Green, a new twelve-acre park in downtown Houston. Over the last 25 years his design work has won 33 national design awards, 21 state or regional design awards and 63 local design awards.

In addition to his being a prolific designer and builder, Larry has also contributed significantly to the development of ideas and direction in his field. He has authored two books, the most recent of which is Technology, Sustainability and Cultural Identity. He has edited or co-edited four publications, has contributed chapters in eleven books by others, and has written over 50 articles in professional journals including Architecture, Urban Land, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, and Architecture Australia.

Larry’s work has been profiled in popular publications such as The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Texas Monthly; in American architectural publications such as Architectural Record, Architecture, Architectural Digest, Architect, and Progressive Architecture; and in international architectural journals such as The Architectural Review (England), OFX (Italy), Design Community (China), Baumeister (Germany), Projeto (Brazil), Ottagano (Italy), Nikkei Construction (Japan) and Architectural Design (England).

Larry has been on the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin since 1975. He has received most of the major teaching awards given university-wide at that institution including the Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, the Chancellor’s Council Teaching Award, the Friar’s Centennial Teaching Fellowship, the William Blunk Professorship, the Amoco Award and membership in the Academy of Distinguished Teachers. In 2005 he received the Rominiec Award given by the Texas Society of Architects for outstanding architectural educator in the state, and most recently, he received the 2011 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education. From 1992 to 2001, Larry served as Dean of the School of Architecture at University of Texas at Austin.

Larry is a fellow in the American Institute of Architects and served as chair of the jury to select fellows in 2005. He has also served on the Architectural Advisory Board for the U. S. State Department Overseas Building Operations, as a National Peer Reviewer for the U. S. General Services Administration Design Excellence Program, and on the boards of national environmental groups such as Greenguard Environmental Institute and Air Quality Sciences. He has recently served on advisory panels for architectural schools at M.I.T., University of Michigan, Tulane University, LSU and University of Nevada at Las Vegas. He attended M.I.T. as an undergraduate receiving two degrees, one in Art and Design from the School of Architecture and one in Management from the Sloan School. He went on to earn his Master of Architecture from M.I.T. as well.

Terrell McCombs

Terrell serves as a Senior Vice President for McCombs Enterprises, managing a spectrum of sales, marketing and finance functions for the organization’s investment portfolio of 160+ companies. He has over 24 years of experience in the areas of business procurement, public/private partnerships and multi-million dollar fundraising.

In 2008, Governor Rick Perry appointed Mr. McCombs Chairman of the Business and Finance Committee of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, overseeing the largest criminal justice system in the nation, with an annualized budget of more than $3 billion. He is Chairman of the board for the Barnes Group, LLC, an innovative consulting group which focuses on federal funding, government contracts and creating bridges between the public and private sectors for clients.

From 2002 to 2012, Terrell served as Chairman of the San Antonio Bond Oversight Commission, responsible for overseeing all bond projects from the 2003 and 2007 bond elections. He also spent two years as Chairman of the San Antonio Mobility Coalition, a Public/Private partnership that is responsible for bringing the city an extra $1.8 billion in funds for transportation infrastructure since 2001.
Terrell is active Advisory Director for the Texas Bighorn Society, the organization responsible for funding and bringing the Texas Desert Bighorn herd back from extinction in the state of Texas—considered by many to be one of America’s greatest large mammal conservation success story over the last 50 years. He is a Life Member of six state and national wildlife conservation organizations, serving on several of their boards.

Terrell has also spent time as a Chairman of the University Health System Foundation, San Antonio Sports Foundation, North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, Community Clinic of Bexar County and Bexar County Ducks Unlimited. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Houston and his MBA from George Washington University.

Chris Bennett

Chris has over 13 years of experience in the solar power industry and 15 years in promotional management. Having consulted for private corporations, construction agencies, and municipalities interested in solar, Chris brings to Circular his first-hand experience at the center of major growth markets in the solar industry.

He has served as Sales Manager for Clean Power Finance, providing solar financing and software solutions to thousands of solar contractors across the United States. Chris also founded Solar Marketing Group in 2008 and for the past 4 years he has been President of Municipal Solar Corporation, which assists government entities in securing solar energy.

As an independent consultant, Chris has worked for top U.S. brands such as SolarCity, groSolar, Real Goods Solar, Perpetual Energy Systems, and HID Labs. He has implemented successful PR, promotional, and field marketing campaigns which have resulted in increased brand awareness and market saturation in each targeted area.

Jay Whitchurch

Jay Whitchurch is the CEO and co-founder of campus2careers, an educational technology company that provides next-generation, career management solutions to students, graduates and fast-growing companies. In this role, he is responsible for overall company strategy, investor relations, management of products and services, and all business operations. In addition to campus2careers, Jay has had been a leader in successfully building and operating large organizations:

- Senior Vice President, Pearson – Managed an $85M P&L and played a key role on the executive team for the K – 12 Assessment business. Jay led the strategy, product management, product delivery, services and operations organizations.

- Chief Information Officer, Senior Vice President, Harcourt – Led a 150 -person Technology organization with a $40M budget and served on the senior executive team. He drove a successful turnaround effort for the Technology organization and was directly involved in turning around the overall Harcourt business.

Jay also spent 13 years in management consulting driving key strategic initiatives for Fortune 100 clients.

- Principal, Booz Allen Hamilton (Booz & Co.) – Worked with clients on corporate strategy and major business transformation programs. For 9 years, Jay managed senior executive relationships and led client engagements in defining and planning large-scale growth and cost reduction initiatives.

- Senior Consultant, Accenture – Managed teams of client and Accenture resources on large-scale process, organizational and technology reengineering initiatives.

Jay holds an MBA and a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the McCombs School of Business (The University of Texas at Austin) where he graduated with honors. He is a Board Member for both Circular Energy and The Money Academy.

Tomas Yuma – President, Implementation

Tomas runs our Implementation department, ultimately responsible for each and every solution we develop. His detailed approach, critical eye, and competitive spirit have helped build Circular’s reputation as a market leader. Tomas brings fifteen years of project management experience in the construction industry, including successfully operating his own business for the seven years prior to joining Circular. Tomas studied architecture at Texas Tech University.