The Mendota Group is certified by the California Public Utilities Commission’s Supplier Clearinghouse for the Utility Supplier Diversity Program as a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE).
The Name
The Mendota Group is based in the Saint Paul, Minnesota suburb of Mendota Heights (with offices in Los Angeles and Spokane, WA). Its location inspired the company’s name. But, there’s more to the story. According to local historians, “Mendota” is derived from the Dakota Indian word “Mdote”. Mdote means “the mouth or junction of one river with another”. Mendota Heights sits above the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. Naming the company after a word that means confluence seemed fitting. The American Heritage Dictionary defines confluence as, “A gathering, flowing, or meeting together at one juncture or point.” A confluence of ideas refers to a melding of ideas from different sources and perspectives into a cohesive and coherent theme. That pretty well describes The Mendota Group.
Our People
Grey Staples – Managing Director
Grey has more than thirty years of experience working on energy and environmental issues. He has held a variety of positions including grassroots non-profit organizer, senior staff advisor for a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee, management consultant, and utility executive. Prior to starting The Mendota Group, Grey served as Director of Financial Forecasting for Xcel Energy, a utility holding company based in Minneapolis. With Xcel, he also held positions related to energy efficiency, demand response, and renewable energy. Before Xcel Energy, he was a utilities Strategy Consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting (now part of IBM) and spent several years as a committee staff person in the U.S. House of Representatives and as a government relations consultant. Grey holds an MBA in Finance and Marketing from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a B.A. in Economics from Occidental College in Los Angeles.
David Sagara – Managing Director
For more than 20 years, David has provided strategy and business process consulting services to clients in the electric, gas and water utilities industry. His current work is focused on distributed energy resources (DER), notably focused on energy efficiency, demand response, and decarbonization. In addition, he has provided regulatory advice, market entry strategy, M&A analysis, business plan specification, benchmarking analysis, and project management/systems implementation services to dozens of clients. Prior to his consulting career, David worked in the engineering/construction industry where he served in project management and business development roles and designed several utility systems for large industrial facilities. David holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a registered Professional Engineer.
Lisa Silverberg – Director
Lisa has more than twenty-five years of experience in administrative, legal, legislative, and organizational strategy. Her experience includes advising the Honorable Leon Panetta on legal and public policy matters including: crime, Western water, constitutional issues, and civil rights. Ms. Silverberg also worked in the Clinton Administration as a special assistant and counsel in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In this capacity, she managed all high-impact cases related to discrimination in health care and worked across federal agencies and with high-level administration officials on health care, civil rights and government reorganization. Lisa holds a J.D. from Arizona State University. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with B.A. degrees in Psychology and Philosophy (Magna Cum Laude) from the The University of Arizona.
Rachel Sours-Page, Ph.D. – Senior Consultant
Rachel has more than twenty years of strategy, policy, planning, and regulatory experience in federal and state demand-side management, pricing and rates programs, and legislation. She has supported utilities in energy efficiency and solar program management, reporting, evaluation, measurement and evaluation, energy efficiency program design, development and monitoring energy efficiency solicitations for third-party implementers. Dr. Sours-Page holds a Ph.D. in Geology from Oregon State University and a B.S. in Geology from Harvey Mudd College / Pomona College.
Olaf Roepke – Senior Consultant
Olaf has more than twenty years of experience in the energy industry, having worked both as a utility employee and as a utility consultant. An engineer by training, Mr. Roepke is an expert in the technical and financial aspects of distributed energy resource (DER) programs and projects. He has supported multiple utilities on energy efficiency, demand response, water-energy nexus, and population-based normalized metered energy consumption (NMEC) projects. Olaf holds a Masters degree in Business Administration from St. Edwards University and Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Ruhr-Universitaet in Bochum, Germany. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).
Kelly Jordan – Senior Consultant
Kelly has more than twenty years of management experience and brings excellent time management skills, rigorous attention to detail, quality, and accuracy, and a mathematically intuitive approach to all the projects on which she works. An engineer by training, Ms. Jordan has run multiple utility energy efficiency programs and is currently managing day-to-day operations for a large population-based normalized metered energy consumption-based (NMEC) program. She holds a Masters degree in Civil Engineering from San Jose State University and a B.S. in Structural Engineering from the University of California, San Diego.