Greener Dawn

George Santana, CFA, Director of Research

George Santana is a six-time Institutional Investor ranked equity research analyst. For the past two years, George has covered the renewable energy and clean tech sectors, first for B. Riley & Co., then for Global Hunter Securities, two small-cap focused institutional brokerages and investment banks. Coverage included companies in the advanced batteries, biofuels, ocean power, and solar power industries, including Akeena Solar (NasdaqCM: AKNS), Altair Nanotechnologies (NasdaqCM: ALTI), Entech Solar (OTC BB: ENSL.OB: formerly WorldWater and Solar Tech), Ocean Power Technologies (NasdaqGM: OPTT), Real Goods Solar (NasdaqGM: RSOL), and Solar Power (OTC BB: SOPW.OB).

From 1999 to 2002, George covered business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce and enterprise software stocks for Los Angeles- based institutional brokerage and investment bank Wedbush Morgan Securities. Coverage included Ariba (NasdaqGS: ARBA), Commerce One, FreeMarkets, and Onvia (NasdaqCM: ONVI).

Prior to his work covering technology stocks, George covered Latin America for seven years. From 1993 to 1998, George covered Latin America-based cement and construction stocks for Merrill Lynch, including Cemex (NYSE: CX), Empresas ICA (NYSE: ICA), Grupo Tribasa, and Grupo Mexicano de Desarollo in Mexico, Cemento Argos and Cementos Paz del Río in Colombia, Cimento Itaú in Brazil, Cementos Lima in Peru, and Vencemos in Venezuela. From 1991 to 1993, he covered Latin America for institutional brokerage D. A. Campbell Company in a variety of industries including airlines, cement, construction, hotels and tourism, steel and aluminum production, and TV and radio broadcasting.

George was ranked for six consecutive years in the Institutional Investor poll of top analysts while at Merrill Lynch and D. A. Campbell Company.

Prior to his work covering Latin America, George was a credit analyst covering the high technology industry in the corporate lending group at Bank of America.

George received a B.A. in Quantitative Economics from Stanford University. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder and holds the following series registrations: 7, 63, 86, 87.

Stephen Quirk, Senior Research Analyst

Steve's responsibilities include research coverage across the renewable energy sector including solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels, smart grid technology and energy efficiency. Steve has ten years of investment experience. He started his career in the Investment Banking division of Morgan Stanley in New York covering chemical and industrial companies, including DuPont, Dow and Schlumberger. He left New York to head up research at Alder Capital, a small-cap based hedge fund in San Diego, where he focused on both traditional and alternative energy. In his six years at Alder Capital, the firm grew to approximately $100 million in assets under management with compound annual returns of just under 20%.

Steve received a B.A. in Economics and a B.A. in History from the University of Virginia. Steve holds the Series 7, 63, 65, 86, and 87 licenses.