Jaimes Valdez works for the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, leading the launch of the groundbreaking Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund. Before this position, Jaimes worked for Spark Northwest, where he covered regulatory, market and legislative policy issues and worked to create communities powered by affordable, locally-controlled clean energy.

He has more than 15 years of experience in energy issues, including in project development, energy planning, utility marketing and public advocacy towards an equitable, clean energy economy. In 2012, he spent a year as a Robert Bosh Fellow in Germany researching cooperatively-funded renewable development, community energy planning, and distributed energy integration. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics and environmental studies from Whitman College.