Susan Preston to Present on Cleantech Finance Panel

Susan Preston, CalCEF Clean Energy FundSusan Preston, General Partner for the CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund, will join a panel discussing the changing rules of financing cleantech companies at the Washington Clean Technology Alliance’s Clean Energy:  New Public Policy Realities on January 28, 2013 at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle.   Participating with Susan will be

  • Michael Butler, Chairman & CEO, Cascadia Capital
  • David Chen, Equilibrium Capital
  • Roger D. Woodworth, Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Avista
  • Susan L. Preston, General Partner, CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund I, LP
  • Bryan Garcia, President, Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority

The Angel Fund is focused on seed/start-up stage investments in clean energy technology.  Susan is a world-recognized expert in angel financing and angel organizations. Susan has spent most of her career in senior management positions in public and private companies, from general counsel to CEO.  She has also been a partner in two national law-firms and is a patent attorney.

Susan is the author of numerous articles, white papers and books on angel financing. Her most recent book, Angel Financing for Entrepreneurs, Early-stage Funding for Long-Term Success was released by Wiley Publishing in March 2007, and her first book, Angel Investment Groups, Networks and Funds: A Guidebook to Developing the Right Angel Organization for Your Community, a comprehensive guidebook on the establishment and operation of angel investment groups, for which she has received numerous accolades, was published by the Kauffman Foundation in 2004.

She has been and continues to be a national and international consultant and speaker on economic development, angel and venture financing for numerous countries and NGOs including the EU, OECD, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Industry Canada and EBAN. She was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation for 6 years and continues to serve as a consultant, specifically focusing on initiatives related to angel investing and angel organizations.

Susan has held several board positions with public and privately held corporations, and has served on non-profit boards. Ms. Preston has been profiled in Red Herring, Inc. magazine, Smart Money, Worth and other local and national publications; and has contributed to numerous nationally published articles on angel investing. Ms. Preston is the founder of Seraph Capital Forum, the first all-women’s angel investment organization.

She is the architect of the Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs Act, a bi-partisan federal income tax credit bill for private equity investing, which was introduced in the House and Senate in 2006 and 2007, and has been re-introduced in the current Congressional session.

Ms. Preston received her JD, cum laude, from Seattle University School of Law and her BS, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in Microbiology and Public Health from Washington State University.