Candela Renewables Expands Team: Leslie Padilla, Matt Kiehlmeier, Kimberly Schreckengost and Erik Anderson
Leslie Padilla, Senior Manager, Transmission & Interconnection
Matt Kiehlmeier, Real Estate Manager
Kimberly Schreckengost, Senior Associate, Development
Erik Anderson, Project Development Analyst
This year has been an exciting year of growth for Candela, as renewable energy continues to be a key priority for more organizations. As a result, we’ve been continually expanding our team with strategic hires, adding expertise to support our national development pipeline. We shared our previous hire rounds on our blog, which you can view here and here. The Candela team now totals 24, and will keep growing to support our pipeline. With that, we are thrilled to announce the latest professionals to join us. We’d like to introduce Leslie Padilla, Matt Kiehlmeier, Kimberly Schreckengost and Erik Anderson, who each join us from well-known companies and impressive backgrounds to further elevate Candela’s skillset.
Leslie Padilla brings more than 30 years of a storied career to Candela as our new Senior Manager, Transmission & Interconnection. In her role, she supports market analysis and all transmission related topics including tariffs, planning and overall interconnection process in target U.S. markets, as well as providing strategic, commercial and technical input to the Development and Origination team. Prior to joining Candela, Leslie held several Transmission & Interconnection positions at San Diego Gas & Electric and Sempra Energy. During her time at Sempra Energy, she was one of the pioneers who interconnected ~2,400 MW of combined-cycle plants into CAISO prior to FERC’s standardized interconnection process (Order No. 2003). She holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from San Diego State University.
Matt Kiehlmeier is our newest Real Estate Manager focused on land acquisition and management. Before joining Candela, Matt served as a Senior Land Representative for NextEra Energy Resources primarily focused on land acquisition for solar development in the PJM and MISO regions. Before he began working in renewables, Matt spent 10 years in the oil and gas industry, doing land acquisition in the Marcellus Shale. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Kimberly Schreckengost joins as Senior Associate, Development, where she focuses on advancing Candela’s existing pipeline of projects as well as supporting greenfield efforts. She is also from NextEra Energy Resources, having previously served there as a Project Manager and Senior Land Representative for over five years. She held previous Land Representative positions prior to NextEra, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Art and Architecture from the University of Pittsburgh.
Erik Anderson joins as a Project Development Analyst after having worked in Candela’s internship program. In his previous position as an EDF Climate Corps Fellow supporting the United States Navy, he helped audit their third-party energy efficiency financing tools. He has also worked as a project developer for New Haven Community Solar creating small-scale solar projects for an affordable housing nonprofit. Erik has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Humanities from Whitman College and a Master of Environmental Management degree in Business and the Environment from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
It’s been a momentous time at Candela, and we look forward to more milestones with our growing team as we create the solar company of the future.
We’re excited to have you on board Leslie, Matt, Kimberly and Erik - let’s do great work together!
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