Canary Live Bay Area

Canary Media is returning to the Bay Area! We invite you to join us at our 3rd annual live event on Thursday, November 6, 5:00–10:00 p.m. at The Freight in Berkeley.

On stage: Conversations with expert panelists, including David Hochschild, Chair of the California Energy Commission, David Roberts of Volts, Jeff St. John of Canary Media, with more to be announced!

Off stage: Drink, eat, and socialize with clean energy leaders, investors, inventors, public leaders, and advocates.

Thank you to our Signature Sponsor: .

Speaker Bios

David Hochschild was appointed chair of the California Energy Commission by Governor Gavin Newsom in February 2019. He fills the environmental position on the five-member commission where four of the five members are required by law to have professional training in specific areas.

Hochschild's career has spanned public service, environmental advocacy, and the private sector. He first got involved in the solar energy field in 2001 in San Francisco as a special assistant to Mayor Willie Brown; Hochschild launched a citywide $100 million initiative to put solar panels on public buildings. He also cofounded the Vote Solar Initiative, a 100,000-member advocacy organization promoting solar policies at the local, state, and federal levels. He was executive director of a national consortium of leading solar manufacturers and worked for five years at Solaria, a solar company in Silicon Valley. From 2007 to 2008, he served as a commissioner at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

For his work to advance clean energy, Hochschild was awarded the Sierra Club's Trailblazer Award, the American Lung Association's Clean Air Hero Award, and the U.S. Department of Energy's Million Solar Roof True Champion Award. In 2024, he was named the American Energy Society’s Person of the Year: United States. Hochschild holds a bachelor of arts from Swarthmore College and a master of public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He also was a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs.

David Roberts, founder of the Volts newsletter and podcast, is a long-time writer and commentator on clean energy and politics. Previously, he covered climate change and clean energy for five years at Vox and 10 years at Grist. He lives in Seattle with his family, three dogs, and a cat.

Jeff St. John is chief reporter and policy specialist at Canary Media. He is the former managing editor and senior grid-edge editor of Greentech Media, and he previously reported for The Fresno Bee, the Tri-City Herald and the Anchorage Daily News. His areas of expertise include renewable energy, smart grid, distributed energy resources, energy storage, demand response, and electric vehicles. Jeff earned a master’s degree from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in 2001. He lives in Oakland with his wife Tara and his dog Lily, and enjoys hiking, gardening, and playing guitar with his nieces and nephews.

Info: Stay tuned for special musical guests on stage during networking!

Info: California can claim a lot of superlatives in the clean-energy economy — the most rooftop solar, grid batteries, electric vehicles, EV chargers — and it’s pushing to bring the next phase of clean tech to scale, from geothermal energy and long-duration energy storage to floating offshore wind power. But it’s also facing major challenges — skyrocketing utility costs, attacks from the Trump administration, and, many critics argue, backsliding at the state policy level on distributed solar, clean buildings, and fossil-fuel phaseout.

David Hochschild has spent decades working in the public, private and nonprofit sectors to co-optimize the application of clean energy to solve environmental and economic problems. Hochschild will sit down with Canary Media’s Jeff St. John to unpack how the agency he chairs is pushing the state’s climate and energy agenda on multiple fronts, and how California can overcome the barriers to achieving a just transition to a clean-powered future.

Info: Stay tuned for special musical guests on stage during networking!

Info: Stay tuned for special musical guests on stage to close out the night!

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Freight, 2020 Addison Street, Berkeley, United States