PASADENA, Calif. ­- National clean transportation technology innovator and accelerator CALSTART announces new hires and promotions while also expanding its executive team.

Piero Stillitano is the national nonprofit organization’s new CFO. He is a finance and business development expert with more than 20 years of international experience managing corporate financial, administration, business development and strategic operations in the corporate and nonprofit worlds, with a specialty in managing rapid growth. Previously, Stillitano was CFO of two national providers of educational, health and behavioral services for individuals with special needs. He was also CFO of Alter Technology TÜV Nord, a multinational company headquartered in Madrid and a world leader in the aerospace and defense industry.

Roxanna Smith was recently hired to lead CALSTART’s media and communications efforts as Director of Communications. Previously, Smith led media campaigns for a decade for a bipartisan public policy communications firm. Her work supported the federal 54.5 miles per gallon fuel economy and emissions standard, the California Clean Cars Program, state and federal heavy-duty truck rules, the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, SB 375, California Title 20 appliance efficiency standards and others. Smith previously worked as a television news producer, writer and reporter.

“Along with the clean transportation sector, CALSTART is growing rapidly. We are really pleased with the additions to our teams and pleased to announce these promotions that will strengthen our organization and help us support the industry’s growth,” said CALSTART President and CEO John Boesel.

CALSTART is also announcing two executive team promotions. Having previously served as CALSTART’s Senior Vice President, Bill Van Amburg is now Executive Vice President. A leading expert in advanced technologies for transportation, Van Amburg is transforming the market for medium and heavy-duty vehicles. He leads CALSTART’s truck and off-road equipment teams. Van Amburg and his team oversee CALSTART’s new Global Commercial Vehicle Drive to Zero program, California HVIP, Drive Clean Chicago, New York Truck Voucher Incentive Program, High-efficiency Truck Users Forum (HTUF) and other transformative programs.

Dr. Jasna Tomic, previously Research Director at CALSTART, joins the executive team as Vice President. A clean fuels and heavy-duty truck technology expert, Dr. Tomic leads projects and studies around the use of alternative technologies and fuels in transportation and bringing advanced technology vehicles to the marketplace. To support that, her teams perform third-party validation and assessment of vehicles, fuels and infrastructure. She led the largest deployment and field testing of pre-production hybrid trucks across the entire nation in 2006 and her team has recently instrumented and analyzed the driving patterns of more than 700 trucks in California.

Alycia Gilde, CALSTART’s former Northeast Regional Director, now leads CALSTART’s Fuels and Infrastructure Initiative. As one of CALSTART’s four initiative areas, Gilde oversees the organization’s strategy to advance low carbon fuels and infrastructure solutions that enable clean technology adoption. Gilde created CALSTART’s alternative fuel corridor program and partners with the U.S. Department of Transportation and its agencies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as well as other public and private entities to promote multi-state coordination to develop and implement alternative fuel corridors across the nation. In her previous role at CALSTART, Gilde launched and oversaw the organization’s Northeast office, managing CALSTART’s expansion into this critical market. Now based in Pasadena, Gilde has led some of the nation’s largest transportation emission reduction programs.

 CALSTART | Changing transportation for good