Extensive career in solar power spanning university, government and industrial positions across three continents. Managed the establishment and operation of five solar R&D facilities and developed software tools that are widely used for silicon photovoltaic solar cell characterization and manufacturing cost modeling. Advisor to federal, city, and university solar programs.

Tim Crane is Senior Director of Supply Chain at Palmetto, where he leads sourcing, planning, and procurement across the company's hardware portfolio, with direct accountability for approved vendor and product management and compliance with FEOC, UFLPA, and Domestic Content requirements.
Tim brings two decades of solar procurement leadership to the panel, having built and directed sourcing organizations at Sunrun, Tesla/SolarCity, and Mainstream Energy (parent of REC Solar and AEE Solar). Across these roles he has led global hardware sourcing strategy covering modules, inverters, batteries, and mounting systems — consistently delivering material cost reductions while maintaining the service and quality standards that large residential and commercial portfolios demand.
Throughout his career, Tim has operated at the intersection of two competing imperatives that define serious procurement leadership: the relentless pressure to reduce cost of acquisition, and the equally real obligation to ensure that what gets specified and purchased will perform bankably over a 25-year asset life. His work has consistently required reconciling those demands while navigating supply chain traceability, ethical sourcing, and third-party quality assurance — the same issues now at the center of the U.S. manufacturing conversation.

Mr. Rob Foree is a Project Manager with over 12 years of energy industry experience and lead's Black & Veatch's independent assessment and bankability practice for new and novel energy generating technologies with the goal of providing insight and detailed review of the product’s design, performance, reliability, manufacturing and quality.  Mr. Foree specializes in independent technical assessments and due diligence for solar PV modules (PERC, TOPCon, HJT, and Perovskites), all types of solar racking systems (fixed, single-axis tracker, rooftop, floating, and dual-axis), and various battery energy storage (BESS) technologies.  He has led and performed numerous assessments for well known PV module, racking, and battery providers across the globe and is knowlegable about the best practices and risks assocciated with these technologies.

Charles F. Gay, Ph.D., is a pioneer and global leader in solar technology with more than 50 years in the field. He earned his B.S. in Chemistry (1968) and Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry (1978) from UC Riverside. He has led world-first manufacturing milestones at ARCO Solar, Siemens Solar, ASE Americas, and Applied Materials, and served as Director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Energy Technologies Office (2016–2019) and Director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (1994–1997). He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2013 and is an inventor on more than 15 issued U.S. patents.

Dr. Henry Hieslmair joined DNV in 2017 and has been focused on various module topics including photovoltaic system degradation, PV module useful life assessments, PV module waste volume, toxicity and circularity (Nature Physics 19.10 (2023)), module O&M modeling, utility plant construction automation, and emerging module technologies. Henry Hieslmair has worked in the PV solar industry since 1993 when he began his PV career at Siemens Solar Industries in Camarillo CA (previously ARCO Solar). Subsequently, he pursued his graduate and post-graduate work at U.C. Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories where he focused on process improvements for multi and monocrystalline PV silicon. After his studies, he cofounded a start-up where he designed and developed a thin multicrystalline interdigitated-back-contact PV cell and module. In 2010, as an early employee at another start-up, he helped pioneer the first high productivity (>3000 wafer per hour) ion implantation tools for the PV industry for phosphorous and boron doping (was utilized for early TOPCon manufacturing). Subsequently, at SunEdison, he worked to commercialize their Continuous Czochralski silicon growth method, performed cell-to-module loss analyses, developed module testing procedures, and performed extensive analysis on boron-oxygen light induced degradation. Over the course of his career, Henry has also consulted for many firms involved in silicon PV including DOE Sunshot program, Solexel, Kleiner Perkins, and Crystal Solar. He has 7 patents and has authored or co-authored over 50 conference and journal articles on PV materials science, device operation, and manufacturing.

Ms. Jester is one of the world’s longest tenured solar engineering and operations executives. Ms. Jester has been focused on solar PV for the last 45+ years. She recently retired after serving as Managing Director of North American operations for Kiwa PI Berlin, a leading risk management and quality assurance service provider for solar power plant equipment. She has held executive management positions at several solar manufacturing companies and other renewable energy industries around the globe-including board positions with numerous companies, particularly with Highland Materials where she serves as Chairman of the Board, and Next Energies Technologies where she serves as an Independent Director. She has been awarded the Women in Solar Energy Award from the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) and the Technology Pioneer Award from the World Economic Forum at Davos.

Ryan joined pv magazine in 2021, bringing experience from a top residential solar installer, and a U.S.-based inverter manufacturer. He holds a degree in Management with a certification in Sustainable Business Practices from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is currently pursuing a Master of Energy and Environmental Management degree at the University of Connecticut.

Xavier Quinet is a procurement executive with over 25 years of experience in industrial and renewable energy sectors. He currently serves as VP of Procurement at Treaty Oak Clean Energy in Austin, Texas and leads strategic sourcing for utility-scale solar and BESS projects. Previously, he held senior roles at BayWa r.e. Americas and ENGIE Solar, overseeing procurement and EPC construction of hundreds of megawatts across North America and internationally.

Dr. Romero is a Senior Managing Director of Black & Veatch Management Consulting. He leads the Bankability and Technology Advisory practice. Dr. Romero specializes in the assessment of risks of new technologies and the development of strategies to mitigate the risks. His team performs bankability studies of new technologies and provides technology advisory services tailored to meet clients’ needs in areas of technology validation, design, performance, reliability, manufacturing, and others. Dr. Romero is a renowned photovoltaics specialist.

Juan Carlos currently leads the procurement of PV modules and other equipment categories in the U.S. for Lightsource bp. Previously, Juan Carlos held a similar position at RWE and also sold wind turbines at Goldwind. Prior to that, Juan Carlos obtained his Master's degree in Industrial Technology and Management from the Illinois Institute of Technology and a Bacherlor's of Science in Electromechanical Engineering from the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid.