Bryan Garcia is the president and CEO of the Connecticut

A finance authority that uses innovative financing tecniques to help achieve clean energy and efficiency policy objectives by crowding in private investment. Although there is diversity in the scope and structure of green banks, they are often capitalized by public funds and have a regional jurisdiction. Source: Green Bank Network

– the nation’s first state-level green bank.  The “green bank model” is demonstrating how smarter use of public resources can attract more private investment in the clean energy economy – reducing the energy burden on households and businesses, creating jobs in local communities, increasing the deployment of clean energy, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause global climate change.

Before joining the

Green banks are generally defined as public or quasi-public financial institutions that use public funds to attract private investment to clean energy projects. Green bank activities can include offering financing guarantees, creating new financial products, and helping alleviate market barriers and inefficiencies. Green banks in Connecticut and New York have hired staff with extensive experience in both the private and public sectors. Each of these banks has the authority and capability to work closely with private sector entities to design effective clean energy financing solutions.

, Garcia was program director for the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. At Yale, Garcia led efforts to develop a leading global program responsible for preparing environmental leaders for business and society.  There he was co-editor of two publications – “Carbon Finance: Environmental Market Solutions to Climate Change” and “Carbon Finance II: Investing in Forests for Climate Protection”.  Prior to Yale, he served as Connecticut’s Climate Change Coordinator where he supported the Governor’s Steering Committee on Climate Change.  Early in his career, he was a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer specializing in NGO capacity building and environmental education in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Bryan is the Co-Chair of the Financing Solutions Working Group of the State Energy Efficiency Action Network (SEEAction Network), on the advisory boards of the Institute for Sustainable Energy at Eastern Connecticut State University, University of Connecticut School of Engineering, and the Yale Center for Business and the Environment, and recently joined the Board of Directors of the Institute for Sustainable Communities.

He holds a B.S. degree in political economy of natural resources from U.C. Berkeley, M.P.A. in public and non-profit administration and an M.B.A. in finance from New York University, and an M.E.M. degree from Yale University.