After a BSC and a PhD in Organic Chemistry at the University of Glasgow, George joined ICI (a major UK Chemicals business) and spent 15 years in in Sales, Marketing and Business Management. Sectors covered included bulk petrochemicals, water treatment, electrochemical technology licensing, brine cavity usage and major power contracts. He then joined AstraZeneca Specialty Chemicals to lead their Japanese ink jet dye business.

The newly formed Regional Development Agencies, economic development agencies of the UK Government, were growing rapidly and George joined the North West Development Agency in 2003 as Director of Science and Innovation. Over the next 8 years, NWDA led a number of major economic development initiatives including Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus. In 2011 he joined Salford University as Professor of Innovation and Enterprise and then took over as Director of Research and Enterprise, standing in for a period as Vice Chancellor Research and Enterprise. A move to the University of Nottingham followed as Director of the Business, Enterprise and Innovation Division and also of the Research Support Office before moving to the University of Edinburgh in 2016 as CEO of ERI ltd (now EI Ltd.) the University’s Commercialisation Company whose staff of 150 lead on business development, Consultancy, venture capital, spin-outs, start-ups and student enterprise.

In April 2024 he became the inaugural Chief Innovation and Economic Development Officer at UC Davis, which includes leadership of the Aggie Square project.

Claire serves as the Vice President and Market Executive for Wexford’s first

development in California- Aggie Square. She is responsible for overseeing the

design, construction, leasing, operations and deal management. Aggie Square is

a 1 million SF development on UC Davis’ Sacramento campus. With two 7-story

lab buildings, one academic office tower, a mixed-use residential component and

parking- the Project is estimated to bring over $1.1 billion of development to the

Sacramento market. This development will also showcase Connect Labs by

Wexford, Wexford’s marquee shared lab and office offering.

Prior to joining the Wexford team, Claire was a Senior Program Manager at

Arizona State University; leading the place-based innovation efforts for the

Entrepreneurship + Innovation team. This included the oversight of design &

construction of new spaces for the program; programmatic and operational

design & daily oversight of the existing portfolio sites; leading a team of six; and

launching a premier, community-facing makerspace.

Before her time at ASU, Claire worked at CIC (the Cambridge Innovation

Center), curating a diverse portfolio of clients for the CIC Boston location;

helping to design and implement data analytics for the company-wide sales

goals; and eventually leading the expansion into Providence, Rhode Island.

She received her Bachelor of Science and of Arts in Operations Management and

in Spanish from the University of North Carolina- Asheville and a Masters of

Global Affairs in Innovation Ecosystems from the University of Toronto.

Jack serves as a Senior Vice President based in Sacramento, CA and oversees Whiting-Turner’s operating groups the Sacramento, CA and Northern Nevada regions. He pioneered Whiting-Turner’s full-time presence as a premier builder in the Sacramento region when he opened their regional office there in 2006, growing steadily ever since. He joined Whiting-Turner immediately after earning his degree in Civil Engineering from Penn State University. Jack has over 30 years of experience with Whiting-Turner, having delivered a wide variety of projects in a multitude of industries and markets, with a focus on highly collaborative project delivery and technical projects including life sciences, higher education, mission critical, and healthcare.

Troels serves as the Executive Vice President, leading Business Development, Marketing, Research and Strategy for the Greater Sacramento Economic Council. A native of Denmark but now a true believer in the California Dream, he lives in Sacramento with his wife Christy and their two rambunctious boys.

An accomplished economic development executive, Troels has personally been involved in the creation of over 13,000 jobs throughout his career. Prior to joining the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, he led tradable sector economic development activities for the City of Portland, Oregon. During his tenure, he strategically repositioned his team to serve the City of Portland’s key industry clusters with a strong inclusion lens and reenergized the city’s international trade efforts. Major wins included the expansions of Adidas’ and Daimler Trucks’ North American Headquarters and new locations of Genentech, Amazon Web Services and Square. All told, these and other projects supported the creation of 4,400 net new jobs for the city and hundreds of millions in new capital investment. Troels was also instrumental in serving Portland businesses during the pandemic, leading several major emergency grant and loan programs, advising key leaders on recovery planning and co-creating the statewide Small Business Stabilization Fund in partnership with the Oregon Community Foundation.

Prior to his time in Portland, Troels spent nine years in Atlanta, first with Partnership Gwinnett and then leading the Metro Atlanta Chamber’s work in developing that region’s globally competitive supply chain and automotive ecosystems. Together with executives from Porsche, AT&T, Panasonic, Cox Automotive and Georgia Tech he founded a regional automotive technology consortium to bring R&D assets to Metro Atlanta. He also launched a major initiative in partnership with 25 major corporations to spotlight Atlanta’s supply chain technology ecosystem and sourced projects that led to the creation of over 2,500 jobs in the region.

Before he found his true calling in economic development, Troels started out in the community development space, building his nonprofit management and accounting skills at one of New York City’s largest community-based nonprofits, CAMBA. He is particularly passionate about early childhood nutrition and currently serves as a Board Member for the Urban School Food Alliance, a coalition of the largest school districts in the United States working together to improve school food for our nation’s children.

Troels is a proud alum of the University of Copenhagen with a BA in Political Science and holds two master’s degrees: a Master of Public Administration from Baruch College and a Master’s in City and Regional Planning from Georgia Tech. The latter earned him the prestigious Ed McClure Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, given to the top Master’s student paper in North America each year.

Peter is a member of a Transwestern team that assists clients in every stage of the

real estate process including: Real estate leasing or disposing of facility leases;

providing strategic, long-term planning via portfolio analysis, site selection and

employee location consulting. We excel in assisting early, mid and late stage

funded start-ups in managing growth in terms of cost analysis with the goal of

increasing their bottom line.

Additionally, Peter is the Bay Area head of Transwestern's BioTech Advisory

Group, leading the company's efforts in life science and biotech office and

laboratory disposition, having years of professional lab experience with the USDA

and public/private cancer research departments before working in brokerage. He is

also a LEED® Accredited Professional, and member of the United States Green

Building Council, helping to merge green building and leasing practices into

commercial real estate.

Mr. Romney joined Blue Rise Ventures as a Senior Vice President in 2023, where he is leading the Business Development efforts focused on strategic industry partner recruitment. He spent the previous 32 years with the University of California, Davis, where he most recently served as the Chief Industry Alliance Officer for the University’s Aggie Square Innovation District. In that role, Mr. Romney was responsible for securing strategic industry partners to collocate with the university in the 1.2M SF initial phase. In addition, Mr. Romney was responsible for the ideation and master planning of Aggie Square, leveraging his experience in innovation district development, industry partner curation and

facility master planning. Mr. Romney's expertise in innovation district development has made him a frequently asked guest speaker and panel moderator, and he is currently serving his second term on the Association of University Research Parks AURP National Board of Directors and Executive Council. In his free time, Mr. Romney enjoys spending time with his family, playing golf, and traveling.

Veteran business leader with more than 15 years building industry-leading teams. Biologics expert with unique range of commercial experience, from therapeutics to cosmetics to CRO/CMO. Business development professional with more than $1B in lifetime sales so far. Entrepreneurial founder of Phage microbiome product company Phi Therapeutics

Industry expert in Facility Development, Construction Project Development, Management, and Consulting in Manufacturing & Life Science. Cross functional team leadership to meet schedule and cost targets on multiple concurrent large and technically complex projects with excellent understanding of existing facility infrastructure, contract and procurement, site selection and planning, real estate planning, capital investment, cost controls, design development and implementation, and ultimate end user goal planning.

Director of Project Development manages the Business Development, Preconstruction, Estimating, Design-Build, and Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) services for the company. James has worked successfully with clients on strategy, business planning, and project development, helping teams bring concepts to reality. James was educated at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo in Construction Management, and has been active in Region Builders, Associated Builders & Contractors, the Design-Build Institute of America. James is a LEED Accredited Professional.

Lucy currently works as GSEC’s Director of Business Development, where she specializes in developing the region’s business ecosystem through client outreach, familiarization tours and startup business attraction. Lucy has expertise and knowledge in attracting Greater Sacramento’s target industries, including food and agriculture technology, life science and future mobility and is creating market development strategies for Greater Sacramento in Los Angeles, Seattle and the Bay Area.

Lucy leads GSEC’s Food & Agriculture Innovation Council, bringing regional leaders together to create strategies that will advance the region’s competitiveness in building a world renown food and agriculture technology hub.

Her previous role as GSEC’s Senior Analyst involved specializing in labor analytics, real estate and site selection strategies and market and cluster analysis, specifically in food and agriculture, life science and mobility. She took a major role in creating GSEC’s Amazon HQ2 proposal and the development efforts of Aggie Square and the California Mobility Center. She was the lead analyst in publishing the 2019 Greater Sacramento Talent Story in collaboration with CBRE and is currently leading the efforts in developing the region’s economic development action plan called the Prosperity Strategy.

In addition, Lucy is fluent in Chinese Mandarin and supports GSEC’s foreign direct investment activities in China. Lucy has experience hosting and communicating with Chinese executives and companies.

Prior to GSEC, Lucy worked at South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) in Southern California and at Sacramento Municipal Utilities District (SMUD), where she was exposed to the environmental and clean energy industries.

Lucy graduated from UC Davis with a Master of Science in Agriculture and Resource Economics. She also received her Bachelor of Science in Managerial Economics with an emphasis in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics from UC Davis. Her university research work has involved conducting a Californian wine grape virus economic analysis for The Wonderful Company and writing an honor’s thesis on evaluating parking demand and elasticity at UC Davis, which have given her great knowledge of economic theory and data modeling.

In her free time, Lucy loves to go out in nature, take photos and play her guitar.

Based in San Francisco, Leslie is a director of HOK’s global Science + Technology practice.

Leslie has dedicated the past two decades of her career to research and laboratory facilities. She has led the lab planning, programming and design for more than 150 projects, including several R&D Magazine/SEFA “Lab of the Year” award winners.

Leslie has spoken at dozens of worldwide conferences and authored numerous articles and reports. She is on the Board of Directors of the Scientific Equipment and Furniture Association (SEFA), and a member of the International Institute for Sustainable Labs (I2SL), Society for College and University Planning (SCUP), American Institute of Architects (AIA).

Damian Hamlin is the Southern Region's Director of Integrated Design. With a passion for both design and construction, this role grants him the opportunity to have a real impact on our clients project delivery. With an education in Architecture and nearly twenty years of experience within an integrated firm, he enables design and construction professionals to work in a more collaborative fashion to better serve our clients needs.

He has a broad array of project delivery type experience including Construction Manager @ Risk, Hard Bid, Design-Build and 3rd party design across numerous sectors such as religious, higher education, retail, federal government and sports. These experiences have prepared him to guide projects and project teams toward a more collaborative and constructive experience, providing higher level service for our clients.

Damian also served as the Design-Build Institute of America's Southeastern Chapters Treasurer, Vice President and President. The institution is filled with amazing, talented and positive individuals from the A/E/C and Real Estate Industry. The organization provides educational opportunities for those dedicated to integrated project delivery, networking opportunities for those in the industry and supports students pursuing degrees in the design and construction management programs.

With two decades of interior design and architecture experience in healthcare and other market sectors, Heather Kampa is both a creative visionary and an effective leader. She is passionate about transforming spaces into captivating environments that combine functionality with aesthetic appeal and allow people to do their best work. As a Project Director with Taylor Design, she develops and strengthens client relationships in the Greater Sacramento area. Heather is president-elect of CREW-Sacramento, the local chapter of the global organization that advances women in commercial real estate through business networking, industry research, leadership development and career outreach initiatives.

Angela has been with Kimball International since 2019. Serving as the Market Sales Manager in Northern CA and Nevada. Her journey with interior design and furniture began back in 2007- Starting as a dealer designer in Nashville, TN she brings years of experience and a diverse knowledge base of contract furniture design. Angela has focused on all verticals but spends most time within healthcare and education.