The 1BOG Team

1 Block Off the Grid was created by Sylvia Ventura and Dan Barahona, San Francisco residents and committed environmentalists. Sylvia and Dan not only advocate solar energy, but also use it - having installed a 2.5KW system for their own home. Future planned projects include plug-in transportation (car or scooter) and solar hot water.

Sylvia Ventura, Founder
Sylvia, a native Parisian, has spent the past decade as a marketing executive in the life sciences industry where she managed market strategies and branding for large French and US Healthcare companies. She founded her first consulting firm while still in college. Seeking to gain US experience Sylvia moved to New York City in the mid 90’s where she worked with some of Madison Avenue’s largest advertising agencies on dozens of top tier pharmaceutical launches. Sylvia’s next move took her to San Francisco to work with early stage biotech companies. Noticing that the traditional ad agency format was not suited to service the emerging life sciences industry’s needs she launched Aperio Life in 2003, a marketing communications agency that caters to early stage companies. That was then…

This is now… After two children and the installation of a complete solar system within the past 2.5 years, Sylvia decided to change gears and put her energies and training towards a business she believes will have a positive impact on our future quality of life. In 2007 she and husband Dan founded Solar4SF.org, a solar advocacy site that has gathered fantastic response. In June 2008 they decided to create an engine that would help people access residential solar at a fraction of the cost. 1 Block Off the Grid was born. Sylvia’s personal goal is to bring some Energy Generation Capability into every household. She is already thinking about 1BOG 2.0: Water and creative approaches to residential water conservation.

Sylvia is a Business graduate from CNAM Paris 4. She traded her high-power motorcycle for a Vespa that she rides everywhere and is hoping to buy an electrical scooter within a year.

Dan Barahona, Founder
Dan, raised in Washington, DC by an Australian mother and Chilean father, is a geek at heart. After earning engineering degrees at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Cornell University (and participating on a national championship winning race car team) he moved to Detroit to crash cars as a Safety & Crashworthiness Engineer for GM. Dan moved to San Francisco after completing his MBA at University of Michigan and jumped into the dot-com scene, founding one company and joining several other startups. Dan is an executive for a high tech software company in San Francisco.

In his spare time (generally between 11:00pm and 11:05pm most nights) Dan works on ways to lessen his family’s carbon footprint, or help others learn more about solar options. He spent most of the summer of 2007 researching all aspects of solar energy - from technology to legislation to electricity metering - and finally had a 2.5 KW system installed. It’s performed flawlessly and he hasn’t had an electric bill since. After sharing his solar experience with friends and colleagues he learned there is great interest in solar, but not much awareness. This was the inspiration to create Solar4SF.org, and then 1 Block Off the Grid.