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Sustainable Technology Expert Joins Innovate Texas Foundation

Dr. Albert A. Esser, senior executive and notable innovator for General Electric, Emerson, Eaton, Dell and other companies, will lead the Foundation’s Sustainable Technologies Committee.

AUSTIN, TEXAS – August 4 , 2009 – Innovate Texas Foundation, a non-profit organization created to enhance Texas’ competitiveness in bringing promising technologies to the marketplace, announced the addition of Albert A. Esser, Ph.D., to their growing list of contributors with deep technology expertise. Dr. Esser will serve as chairman of the Foundation’s Sustainable Technologies Committee.

“Innovate Texas Foundation is thrilled to bring one of the world’s leading sustainable technologies thinkers on board,” said David Nance, Executive Chairman of the Foundation. “Bringing the Clean Technologies and Sustainable Industries Organization to Austin earlier this summer coupled with the addition of Albert makes us extremely excited about the role that sustainable technologies will play in Texas’ economy.”

In his role as chairman of the Sustainable Technologies Committee, Dr. Esser will bring the Foundation global industry insight developed over his international career as well as numerous business and technological relationships. Dr. Esser will enhance our ability to be a catalyst for transactions and collaborations among the state’s academic, business, investment and government institutions.

"I am very much looking forward to working with colleagues at the Foundation to increase Texas’ competitiveness with sustainable technologies,” said Dr. Esser. “I have worked in the private sectors for years and being able to take my experiences to the non-profit and public sectors is a true privilege. Texas is at the cusp of some exciting new developments, particularly in the energy sector, and I will help drive continued innovation there.”

Dr. Esser, an electrical engineer and inventor, is a founder and member emeritus of the GridWise Architecture Council, a team of industry leaders advising the U.S. Department of Energy on highly intelligent and interactive electric systems to allow interoperability between technologies, systems and users.

Dr. Esser is founder and president of AlbertEsser, LLC, a firm providing sustainable energy technology solutions and technology management services to a number of businesses and organizations. Dr. Esser is a resident of Austin, TX where he recently served as Vice President of Power and Infrastructure Solutions for Dell, Inc., where he was responsible for the company’s Infrastructure Product line and its global Power and Cooling Initiative. In that role, Dr. Esser enhanced Dell’s IT solutions that provide insight gained from customers to the server, storage, data center and services product leaders to maximize value across the enterprise.

Previously, Dr. Esser served as a vice president at Eaton Corporation, leading its Innovation Center; Chief Technology Officer and Vice President at Emerson Electric, overseeing global research and development of Emerson Network Power across six continents; Senior Vice President at Hilti, Liechtenstein; Global Imaging Subsystems Manager in General Electric’s MRI division, and Power Controls Program Manager in General Electric’s Corporate R&D Center. While at GE, Dr. Esser was awarded the company’s top team award, the Dushman award.

Dr. Esser is the owner of both Master’s and doctorate degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Aachen in Germany. He has published a book on wireless transmission of electric power and signals for robots, authored more than ten papers, received a post-doctorate scholarship from the German Research Foundation and received the Outstanding Prize Paper Award given by the IEEE and III Japan.

About Innovate Texas Foundation
Innovate Texas Foundation, the International Center of Collaborative Innovation, was created to address the 2008 Texas Governor’s Competitiveness Council’s recommendation that a statewide foundation was needed to coordinate and connect clusters of innovation across Texas. Innovate Texas, a non-partisan organization connects our state’s wealth of intellectual capital with financial capital to create abundant economic opportunity and strengthen our universities.

By connecting the wealth of knowledge in Texas with the entrepreneurial and financial resources of the globalized economy, Innovate Texas Foundation helps foster a culture in the state that encourages innovation and appreciates the need for strong businesses to create the high-value jobs that will form the backbone of our future economy. You can learn more by visiting www.InnovateTexas.org.