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Registration Fees:

Early Bird Registration (until October 1st): $80

Regular Conference Registration: $100

Cal Poly Community Registration: $20 (Use discount code at checkout)

To receive special registration rates, please enter your coupon when checking out.

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Conference registration is limited and is offered on a first come, first serve basis. 

Sponsorship Opportunities

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Sponsorship opportunities are available. Please contact REI Director Dr. Hamed Ghoddusi for details

Andy Pollin

Real Estate Executive and Educator

College of Architecture and Environmental Design, Cal Poly

EVENT ROLE Master of Ceremonies

Andy Pollin is a real estate executive and educator with more than 25 years of experience in real estate investment, finance, development, and construction. He teaches real property development at Cal Poly and the University of San Diego, bringing a practitioner’s perspective to project feasibility, capital structure, entitlement risk, and delivery. As Master of Ceremonies, he will guide the program and connect the day’s discussions across panels.

Marc Swackhamer

Dean

College of Architecture and Environmental Design, Cal Poly

EVENT ROLE Opening Presentation: Sustainability, Community Integration, and New Approaches to Data Center Design

Marc Swackhamer is Dean of Cal Poly’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design. His work and leadership connect architectural education, design research, digital fabrication, sustainability, and environmentally responsive design. Through his collaborative research practice, he has explored interdisciplinary design, material experimentation, and the relationship between biology and architecture. His opening remarks will frame the day’s data-center discussions within Cal Poly’s broader built-environment mission.

Gilbert M. Bareng

Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Bareng Corporation

Gilbert M. “Gil” Bareng is the founder and chief executive officer of Bareng Corporation, a real estate investment and development company focused on building infrastructure for human potential. With more than two decades of experience in architecture, public-school facilities, planning, and community-centered development, he connects land, housing, education, workforce, finance, culture, and community needs into integrated development strategies. His work emphasizes relationship-based, long-horizon projects that create value beyond the property itself and strengthen local opportunity.

Hamed Ghoddusi

Director, Cal Poly Real Estate Initiative; Associate Professor of Finance

Orfalea College of Business, Cal Poly

EVENT ROLE Presentation: Economics and Geography of Data Centers

Hamed Ghoddusi is Director of the Cal Poly Real Estate Initiative and a finance professor at Cal Poly's Orfalea College of Business. His research spans housing, natural resource economics, technology, and risk management. Before entering academia, he worked as a management consultant, model builder, and analyst with national and international organizations across three continents. He brings a cross-disciplinary, data-driven perspective to land-use and local economic development challenges, and teaches courses in Housing Development Finance and Advanced Analytics.

Scott Collins

Assistant City Manager (former Morro Bay City Manager)

City of San Luis Obispo

Scott Collins serves as Assistant City Manager for the City of San Luis Obispo. He oversees the City’s Community Services group, including the Community Development, Parks and Recreation, Public Works, and Utilities departments. Before joining the City in December 2024, Collins was executive director of the Housing Authority of San Luis Obispo and previously served for five years as city manager of Morro Bay. He brings extensive experience in local-government administration, housing, infrastructure, land-use implementation, and coordination across public agencies and community partners.

Jeremy Cook

IntegrEn

Jeremy Cook works at the intersection of sustainable infrastructure, energy systems, and data-center development. Over more than 15 years, he has worked across renewable energy, carbon capture, distributed energy-resource management, virtual power plants, energy-market forecasting, data centers, and water and wastewater infrastructure. Public biographies note prior leadership roles at Noya, GridBeyond, and ENGIE Impact, where he established a renewable-energy advisory practice. He brings a practical perspective on turning land into infrastructure-ready platforms and coordinating landowners, utilities, developers, regulators, and communities.

Laura Fiedler

Economic Development & Tourism Manager | City of San Luis Obispo

EVENT ROLE Moderator, Panel #2

Laura Fiedler serves as Economic Development and Tourism Manager for the City of San Luis Obispo. She leads initiatives supporting business development, retention and expansion, employment growth and tourism promotion, working with City leadership, businesses and community partners. Previously, she served as Economic Development Manager for San Luis Obispo County and held policy, government and community affairs roles in the energy industry, along with corporate responsibility and sustainability consulting work. A San Luis Obispo native, she earned a master’s degree in Foreign Service, Global Business and Finance at Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree at Northwestern University. She brings a local-government perspective on the economic opportunities and community considerations surrounding technology investment.

Christina Fugazi

Mayor | City of Stockton

Christina Fugazi is Mayor of the City of Stockton, elected in November 2024 after serving on the Stockton Planning Commission and two terms on the City Council. An educator and public administrator with more than 30 years in STEM education, she founded Delta VISTA Academy and has worked to connect students with higher education and career pathways. Her public-service experience spans land use, fiscal stewardship, regional transportation, air quality, economic development, and partnerships with the Port of Stockton and local schools. As mayor, she has emphasized job creation, sustainable economic growth, collaboration, and civic accountability. She brings a city-leadership perspective on how communities evaluate major infrastructure and technology investments and connect them to workforce opportunity, development, and long-term public value.

Erica Garaffo

Strategic Energy Customer Development Lead

City of San José

Erica Garaffo is a public sector innovator focused on building resilient, sustainable cities through technology and data-driven infrastructure planning. At the City of San José, she leads strategies integrating energy and utility systems with economic development, advancing civic partnerships that unlock innovation and investment. With a background in Industrial Engineering and a Master’s in Public Policy from Cal Poly SLO, Erica brings a systems-thinking approach to complex urban challenges—bridging technical analysis with policy design. A San José native, she is passionate about co-creating solutions that leave her community stronger and more connected for future generations.

Russ Levanway

Chief Financial Officer

REACH Central Coast

Russ Levanway is chief financial officer of REACH Central Coast, where he leads financial strategy, budgeting, contracting, board-committee work, and organizational sustainability. Before joining REACH, he founded and scaled a nationally recognized information-technology firm and developed a record as a trusted business adviser. At REACH, he helps translate regional economic-development ambitions into disciplined financial and operating plans. He brings a Central Coast perspective on investment attraction, infrastructure readiness, workforce development, and the long-term regional value that major technology and energy projects can create.

John Miranda

Lecturer, Management, Human Resources, and Information Systems

Orfalea College of Business, Cal Poly

EVENT ROLE Presentation: Data Center Trends Lecture

John Miranda is a lecturer in Cal Poly’s Orfalea College of Business and a research fellow with Nemertes. He retired from Intel in late 2025 after more than three decades, most recently serving as a senior director in the Corporate Strategy Office. His work has spanned corporate foresight, competitive strategy, data-center and AI markets, software transformation, and sustainability; he also co-chaired the launch of the Open Compute Project’s sustainability tenet. Miranda now teaches client consulting at Cal Poly and brings a technology-industry perspective grounded in strategy, energy efficiency, and data-center systems.

Dawn Ortiz-Legg

District 3 Supervisor

County of San Luis Obispo

Dawn Ortiz-Legg represents District 3 on the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors. The Board’s responsibilities include land use, natural-resource stewardship, economic development, public safety, social services, and public health. Before elected office, Ortiz-Legg built a career in energy infrastructure and efficiency, helped develop nearly two gigawatts of utility-scale solar, and spent almost a decade overseeing electric transmission and distribution maintenance. She holds a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins SAIS and brings a distinctive combination of local governance, land-use, and energy-infrastructure experience.

Nick Prescott

Verrus Data Center Development

Nicholas “Nick” Prescott is affiliated with Verrus Data Center Development and brings more than two decades of experience in commercial-property markets. His public professional profile emphasizes creative leadership, entrepreneurship, and the development of new real-estate and investment platforms. He brings a market-oriented perspective to data-center development, including the commercial judgment required to evaluate sites, structure opportunities, assemble partners, and move emerging infrastructure projects toward execution. Publicly accessible information about his current role is limited; the affiliation shown here follows the event organizer’s confirmed speaker list.

Thomas Fowler IV

Professor of Architecture; Director, Design Collaboratory

College of Architecture and Environmental Design, Cal Poly

EVENT ROLE Moderator, Panel #3

Thomas Fowler IV is a professor of architecture and Director of the Design Collaboratory at Cal Poly. A licensed architect and Fellow of the AIA, he has spent more than three decades advancing interdisciplinary, technology-enabled architectural education. His work integrates design, building technology, constructability, and collaboration across architecture, engineering, construction, business, and community partners. Fowler has led complex high-rise, design-build, and community-serving studios and has received major honors including the CSU Wang Family Excellence Award, Cal Poly Distinguished Teaching Award, and ACSA Distinguished Professor recognition.

Wil Smith

Chief Executive Officer, President, and Founder

Greenlaw Partners

EVENT ROLE Moderator, Panel #1

Wil Smith is CEO, President, and Founder of Greenlaw Partners, a California-based real estate development and operating company with a large portfolio of acquisitions, dispositions, and development activity. He brings a developer's perspective on entitlement risk, project execution, capital discipline, and the difference between theoretically possible projects and projects that can actually be delivered.

Victor Sim

Managing Member

Value-Add HS, LLC

EVENT ROLE Panel Member, Panel #1

Victor Sim is Managing Member of Value-Add HS, LLC, where he advises artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, and data center companies on hyperscale growth strategies, strategic partnerships, capital creation, and commercialization. He currently advises AtomBeam, a Persistent Cognitive Machine AI company focused on persistent memory and consistent learning; Energration, an ontology and agentic AI platform for enterprise intelligence and automation; and ACA, which advances next-generation AI infrastructure technologies. Previously, he was a corporate securities partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal (now Dentons) and Squire Sanders & Dempsey (now Squire Patton Boggs), advising public and private companies on complex securities, financing, and corporate matters. He is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and Emory University School of Law.

Alex Witt

Managing Director, Capital Markets, JLL

Alex Witt is a Managing Director in the San Francisco office of JLL Capital Markets, Americas. Alex joined JLL in 2010 and has more than 15 years of experience in commercial real estate finance. Alex has worked in both the San Francisco and Houston JLL offices and specializes in the placement of debt and equity for property owners, helping raise capital for ground up developments, acquisitions, and the refinancing/recapitalization of assets.

Alex began his career as a CMBS and balance sheet lender with Countrywide Commercial Real Estate Finance and GE Commercial Finance in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Immediately prior to joining JLL, Alex assisted the FDIC in the transfer of REO assets from failed banks to acquiring institutions or FDIC receivership.

Julia Rogers, MRED

Real Estate Development Manager

California State University, Office of the Chancellor

Julia Rogers, MRED, is Real Estate Development Manager for the California State University Office of the Chancellor, where she supports development partnerships and real-property initiatives across the CSU system. Her work includes evaluating campus development opportunities, engaging developers and investors, structuring public-private partnerships, and helping align real estate strategy with university priorities. She is a licensed California real estate broker and holds a Master in Real Estate Development from IE University. Her perspective connects campus land and facilities, financial feasibility, sustainability, and community-serving development.

Annie Aguiñiga Frew

Lecturer, Political Science Department

College of Liberal Arts, Cal Poly

Annie Aguiñiga Frew is a lecturer in Cal Poly’s Political Science Department, where her work focuses on California politics, political advocacy and social movements, and the politics of race and the environment. Her career spans more than a decade in the California Legislature, local community engagement, and political advocacy. She previously served as Director of Community Engagement and Advocacy at Visit SLO CAL, bringing direct experience with regional economic development, tourism, infrastructure, and community policy. She earned an MPP from Cal Poly and completed a Doctor of Public Policy at Claremont Graduate University in 2026. Her local and state policy experience brings a community-engagement perspective to the Central Coast panel.

Mike Colborn

Senior Manager, Electric Program Management | Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E)

Mike Colborn is Senior Manager, Electric Program Management at Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). He works on major electric infrastructure programs and load interconnection processes that shape the delivery of power to large customers. PG&E identified Colborn among the team supporting the January 2026 energization of Equinix’s SV12 data center in San José, a project supported by scalable upgrades to the Santa Teresa Substation. He has also represented PG&E in California Public Utilities Commission stakeholder discussions on transmission-related processes and electric project delivery. His perspective connects large-load demand, grid planning, schedules and the practical requirements for bringing data center sites into service.