Jason Makansi, a recent transplant to Tucson, AZ, is president of Pearl Street (www.pearlstreetinc.com), whose clients range from electric utilities, Fortune 50 global energy firms, growing technology firms, and garage shop inventors. He specializes in technology deployment for the electricity and energy industries.

A life-long entrepreneur, he has raised venture capital for clients, assisted in creating partnerships and collaborations, launched and managed a hedge fund focused on the electricity supply and delivery value chain, started up innovative publications in energy and environmental affairs, helped tech-based companies grow in preparation for acquisitions and exits, started up and managed two policy groups to support the grid-scale energy storage business, and launched a publishing company (now managed by his wife and two partners). He is the author of three professional books, including An Investor’s Guide to the Electricity Economy (2002) and Lights Out: The Electricity Crisis, The Global Economy, and What It Means to You (2007), both published by John Wiley & Sons.

His latest work is a popular book, Painting By Numbers: How to Sharpen Your BS Detector and Smoke Out the Experts, offering a lighthearted but serious approach to numerical literacy, twelve commandments for judging the certainty, validity, and relevance of any numerical result, along with examples from current events.

Makansi is a frequent keynote speaker, guest lecturer, workshop leader, panelist, and presenter on technology, business, and policy innovations for energy and electricity.

In the area of service, he mentors engineering and business students, lectures on numerical literacy to teachers and academics,  leads tours at the Titan Missile Museum south of Tucson, interviews prospects for his college alma mater, plays viola and performs with inter-generational chamber groups and orchestras for seniors, juniors, and the general public.

He earned his BS in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University, has taken graduate courses in technology management, and several graduate courses towards a higher degree in Sociology. He moonlights as a fiction writer, evaluates fiction submissions for two well-known literary journals, and has published a dozen short stories. His first novel, The Moment Before, will be available early next year.

This will be Makansi’s third appearance as a lead presenter for USEA’s Briefing Series