Stefan Bird

Stefan leads BrightNight’s commercial functions in the U.S., including origination, market analytics, marketing, and communications. He brings three decades of energy industry experience including 25 years in C-level roles across Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiaries including vertically integrated utilities, independent power, commodity trading, acquisitions and international development.

Prior to joining BrightNight, Stefan was President and CEO of Pacific Power, a division of PacifiCorp, where he was responsible for retail service to 800,000 customers in Oregon, Washington and California, PacifiCorp’s wholesale transmission and renewable energy operations across ten Western States, and PacifiCorp’s corporate services at its Portland, Oregon headquarters.

Stefan brings deep experience in Western energy markets and a career of leading innovation with dynamic teams to deliver lasting customer benefits. While at PacifiCorp he championed the formation and expansion of the California ISO’s energy imbalance market that saved customers across the West over $5 billion across its first 9 years, and was again the first utility to commit to join the CAISO’s extended day-ahead market. Stefan oversaw PacifiCorp’s portfolio transition from less than 100 MW to over 7,000 MW of owned and contracted renewable resources, successful permitting and construction of over 630 miles of interstate transmission, and over a gigawatt of renewable energy supply to data center customers incorporating novel green tariffs.  He also led due diligence of transmission and generation portfolio and trading operations for over $10 billion closed utility acquisitions.

Stefan was previously President and CEO of CalEnergy, where he oversaw operations and development for a U.S. portfolio of geothermal, natural gas cogeneration and minerals facilities. As Vice President of Acquisitions and Development for Berkshire Hathaway Energy, he supported closing of $5 billion of interstate natural gas pipeline acquisitions and distressed company structured loans. In his early career, Stefan worked for various subsidiaries of Koch Industries, Inc., across the U.S., Europe, Mexico and South America, including co-founding one of the first power trading companies in the U.S. and negotiating one of the first retail wheeling agreements in the U.S. for refinery power supply.

Stefan holds a mechanical engineering degree from Kansas State University.  He lives near Portland, Oregon, on a farm with his wife, Valerie, their two children and three dogs.