John Boesel

John Boesel is the President and CEO of CALSTART, the leading clean transportation industry organization in the United States. Over the past 29 years John has become a leading expert with extensive experience in building the clean transportation industry.

CALSTART has more than 300 member companies ranging from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies. In the past three years the organization has doubled in size and now has more than 140 employees and offices in five states.

Since John became President and CEO in 2001, CALSTART’s impact has increased significantly and grown into a national organization that is now playing a global leadership role. CALSTART has organized and mobilized industry support for policies that advance strong vehicle efficiency and emission standards in California and nationally. In 2022, CALSTART will manage incentive programs for the State of California and distribute approximately $750 million in funds. In 2021, CALSTART announced a Global Memorandum of Understanding whereby 15 nations commited to strong zero emission commercial vehicle targets.

Boesel initiated and leads the CALSTART Investor Council (CIC). The council includes representatives from venture capital firms, a pension fund, and a leading corporate strategic venture group. Boesel communicates frequently the CIC members to help secure funding CALSTART member companies and identify future trends and strategies that will increase private investment in the industry.

Earlier in his career John worked in the State legislature as a legislative aide for California Assemblyman Sam Farr. In that capacity, John was Farr’s point person on legislation that was signed into law that made the oil companies strictly liable for all damages associated with oil spills. In 1987 John taught English to graduate students in Yunnan Province in the People’s Republic of China. From 1989-91 John worked as a commercial loan officer for Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco. In 1991 John worked with a broad and diverse coalition that was successful in getting federal legislation passed that placed fisheries and the environment as higher priorities for the management of the extensive network of federally owned and managed dams and canals in California.

John is a member of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies Board of Advisors and was recently appointed to be a member of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Mobile Source Technical Review Subcommitee. From 2014-2018 John was a member of the Advisory Board of the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at Stanford University.

John received his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of California, Davis. In 1989, he earned his Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley.