From sales to science, a slew of appointments take place in the U.S. and U.K.
In her new position, Cohen (pictured above center), who starts Feb. 25, will direct the port’s legislative team and help establish its policy priorities at the local, state, federal and international levels.
Cohen most recently served as the director of government affairs for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT).
“As the busiest port in the nation, the Port of Los Angeles has a major interest in assuring that public policy and government initiatives support our business priorities and needs,” said Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka. “We are thrilled to have someone of Jennifer’s caliber and expertise on board to guide our legislative and government affairs efforts.”
Prior to joining LADOT, Cohen oversaw state and federal government and regulatory affairs at the Southern California Regional Rail Authority (Metrolink), served as a legislative deputy for the Los Angeles City Council and worked in the private sector as a consultant.
CALSTART has announced that Piero Stillitano is the national nonprofit organization’s new CFO; Roxanna Smith was hired as director of communications; Bill Van Amburg is now executive vice president; Jasna Tomic has been promoted to vice president; and Alycia Gilde now leads the fuels and infrastructure initiative.
Stillitano has more than 20 years of international experience managing corporate financial, administrative, business development and strategic operations in the corporate and nonprofit worlds. Previously, he was CFO of two national providers of educational, health and behavioral services for individuals with special needs as well as of Alter Technology TÜV Nord, a multinational company headquartered in Madrid and a world leader in the aerospace and defense industry.
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 and California Title 20 appliance efficiency standards.
Van Amburg previously served as CALSTART’s senior vice president. He 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 and the High-efficiency Truck Users Forum.
Previously the research director at CALSTART, Tomic (pictured top right) 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 preproduction 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.
Gilde (pictured top left) previously was CALSTART’s Northeast regional director. She now 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 multistate coordination to develop and implement alternative fuel corridors across the nation.
Joseph Sparks and Tanner J. Thorne have been named vice presidents of sales for capital equipment solutions at Corcentric, a provider of procurement and financial process automation solutions designed to optimize fleets’ total cost of ownership. Sparks will be responsible for the western United States and Thorne will be responsible for the Midwest.
Sparks has two decades of experience as a sales professional in the transportation industry. Most recently, he was vice president of sales for Estenson Logistics/Hub Group Dedicated, for which he grew annual revenue from $60 million in four states to more than $285 million in 31 states. Sparks also held executive sales positions at Ruan Transportation, Ryder Systems, Industrial Fleet Management and First Fleet Corp.
Thorne joined Corcentric from Penske Truck Leasing, for which he handled multiple locations and ranked in the top 10 percent of all lease sales representatives in the country. Thorne began his career in the transportation industry with Penske in 2015 as a management trainee.
TT Club, the international transport and logistics industry’s leading provider of insurance and related risk management services, has appointed Andrew Peers as the senior underwriter for its U.K., Benelux and Nordic underwriting team.
Peers joins the club from RSA, for which he led a team of 12 marine liability and marine property insurance underwriters for 17 years. He also has held senior positions at GE Frankona and Willis.
