Advisory Board
David Gottfried Sr. Vice President, Thomas Properties Group
David Gottfried has over two decades of multidisciplinary real estate, consulting and non-profit organizational experience in the building industry: as a real estate developer, construction manager, green management consultant, and founder of the U.S. and World Green Building Councils.
Mr. Gottfried is the founder, and was the first staff president of the U.S. Green Building Council. USGBC is the foremost green building organization in the world, now with 7000 organizational members from all sectors of the building industry. Mr. Gottfried is also the founder of the World Green Building Council, with councils being developed in over a dozen countries. He serves as a board member and officer of both organizations.
Mr. Gottfried previously held executive level positions in several real estate development and construction management organizations. These real estate companies specialized in the development, construction and property management of commercial and multifamily residential property in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area. Gottfried has worked on projects totaling approximately 6 million square feet.
Mr. Gottfried received his degree in Engineering and Resource Management from Stanford University, and is a regular lecturer for Stanford’s Civil Engineering Department. He has published dozens of articles and conducted hundreds of speeches worldwide. Gottfried is the recipient of the Environmental Enterprise Award from Acterra Business Environmental Network. He is the founding Chairman of ASTM's Green Building Committee, and the Managing Editor of the U.S. DOE and EPA funded Sustainable Building Technical Manual. He is the author of Greed to Green: the transformation of an industry and a life, published in 2004.
Steve Chaffin, Partner Marketing, Yahoo! Inc.
Steve has extensive on-line and off-line consumer marketing and business development experience through working at a variety of large and small companies. Steve worked in brand management at The Clorox Company and ran marketing and sales at Nature’s Cure, Inc., a homeopathic skin care company. After Nature’s Cure he worked with Mobius Venture Capital (formerly Softbank) to launch BlueLight.com (Kmart’s e-commerce and ISP joint venture with Softbank, Yahoo and Martha Stewart) and was one of the founding employees. Later at AOL, Steve managed several major partnerships (Wal*mart, United States Postal Service, and Target) and worked with several of the Time Warner divisions; later, he ran marketing for AOL’s mobile group focusing on AIM and working with the major mobile carriers. Recently, Steve was VP Marketing at LiveDeal.com, a leading on-line classified and directory company, which partners with major media and newspaper companies.
Steve has always cared deeply about the environment. Even at an early age he had an interest in greening the home: he and his father built a solar-powered model home and oven for his sixth grade science fair. Steve received a BA in political science from University of Rochester and an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.