Board of Directors

  • Arnold J. Goldman

    Chairman & Founder, BrightSource Energy, Inc.

    Arnold J. Goldman is the Chairman and Founder of both BrightSource Energy Inc. and BrightSource Industries (Israel), Ltd. (BSII). He holds a B.S. in Engineering from UCLA and a MSEE from the University of Southern California. Mr. Goldman was the founder of Luz International, Ltd. and served as its CEO. Luz International, Ltd. designed, constructed, financed, and operated the world’s nine largest Solar Electric Generating Systems (SEGS) which, at the time, generated 90 percent of the world’s solar electricity. Mr. Goldman also co-founded Electric Fuel Ltd., an electric battery/fuel cell company listed today as Aerotech on the NASDAQ. He was the VP of Engineering and co-founder of Lexitron, the first word processing company in the US. Lexitron was bought by Raytheon in 1977. Mr. Goldman is the recipient of two international awards for his contribution to solar energy development. He holds numerous patents for his inventions and innovations.

  • John M. Woolard

    CEO and President

    John Woolard is President and CEO of BrightSource Energy. In this role, John brings more than two decades of experience in the energy technology sector as an executive, entrepreneur and investor. 

    Prior to joining BrightSource Energy, John co-founded Silicon Energy, one of the first successful clean tech companies, and was President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board from 1997 to 2003.  John joined the executive team at Itron, Inc. in 2003 following its acquisition of Silicon Energy, and was Vice President of Software Solutions and subsequently the Vice President of Strategy and Business Development.  John previously held positions with VantagePoint Venture Partner’s CleanTech Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, and Pacific Gas & Electric Company.

    John is a Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and has served on the Board of the California Clean Energy Fund and the Strategic Advisory Board for Xcel Energy, and currently serves on the Tuolumne River Preservation Trust, the Oakland Zoo and the Lester Center Advisory Board-Haas School of Business, U.C. Berkeley.

    John holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley, a Masters in Environmental Planning from the University of Virginia, and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Virginia. John is a lifetime member of the Sierra Club.

  • David Fries

    Managing Director, VantagePoint Venture Partners

    Mr. Fries has more than 35 years of operations, advanced technology, and investment experience and has been a senior-level venture capitalist for more than 20 years. He began his career at General Electric, serving 17 years in numerous executive roles in engineering, manufacturing, senior management, and finance. He directed GE Venture Capital’s California operations, which later became the venture capital firm Canaan Partners and, in his last role, was President of General Electric Ceramics, a wholly owned subsidiary. Mr. Fries is a graduate of Florida Atlantic University B.S. and Case Western Reserve University (Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry).

  • Jim Eats

    Director, BrightSource Energy, Inc.

    As Division President at Americas for General Electric Wind Energy, Mr. Eats successfully directed a $500 million P&L division, which GE purchased in 2002.  He has vast global experience, including GE Energy Region Executive and General Manager of South Asia, responsible for customer facing activities in 18 countries from Vietnam to New Zealand. Previously, he successfully led GE Power Systems-Korea, one of GE’s largest overseas markets. Mr. Eats has completed formal language training in Mandarin, Japanese, Thai, and Korean. In addition to an energy background in combined cycle and cogeneration applications, he also focuses on environmental and clean technologies, including: large and small wind turbine applications, photovoltaics, solar thermal, combined heat and power, solar electric, micro-turbines and fuel cells, toxin reduction, dynamic power, transmission and distribution, smart metering, and energy management. His education includes a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic, and a B.S. in Engineering from Clarkson University. He is the holder of multiple U.S. patents, and has been named General Electric Energy Young Engineer of the Year.

  • Rahul Culas

    Director

    Rahul Culas brings nearly a decade of experience structuring, financing and executing commodity hedging and capital markets transactions for a variety of power generation technologies to his Director role at BrightSource Energy.  Currently, Mr. Culas serves as an Executive Director in the Project and Structured Finance Group at Morgan Stanley, where he is responsible for project finance and structured investments in the power and renewables sector.  Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Rahul was with Goldman Sachs in its Commodity Finance Group. Mr. Culas holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Powai and a Masters degree from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.