TOM D. TAMARKIN
President and CEO

Mr. Tamarkin began his career in technology development and business management in the early 1970s.  From 1978 to 1985 Tamarkin founded two successful technology companies. Mizar Corporation was an early innovator in electronic lighting control for the entertainment and energy management businesses.  Texcon Company developed and commercialized the Allegro Mentor product which was a highly sophisticated artificial intelligence based teaching system for the music industry.

In the mid 1980s Tamarkin joined the Datamatic company in Dallas, Texas and founded the Advanced Technology Division.  Tamarkin advanced to Executive Vice President and General Manager with full P&L responsibility.  Datamatic at the time was one of two pioneering companies in the field of utility meter data acquisition systems along with Itron Corporation in Spokane, Washington.  From 1982 to 1987 Datamatic and Itron collectively converted every Investor Owned Utility and virtually all major Municipal and Rural Electric Cooperative utilities in the United States from writing meter read values by pencil on cards to the use of electronic hand held data terminals which reduced the latency from read to bill time from 3 days to same day billing.

Tamarkin subsequently left Datamatic Company to found Tamar Corporation.  As part of Tamar Corp’s marketing strategy, Tamarkin was co-author and publisher of The Complete Handbook of AMR as endorsed by the Automatic Meter Reading Association (AMRA) and developed the SAMREIM product (Software for Automatic Meter Reading Economic Impact Modeling.) SAMREIM has been used by hundreds of utilities world-wide to determine present meter reading costs and model future costs based on various AMR methods.  Tamar was the first company in the world to develop the now ubiquitous “Drive By” Automatic Meter Reading system for electric, gas, and water utilities using low power 900 MHz, ISM band radio technology a full two years before the introduction of the Itron Ert and drive by AMR product.  In 1991 Tamarkin was a key note speaker at the NMRC utility industry show which ushered in the modern era of automatic meter reading (now Advanced Metering Infrastructure or AMI.)

Since April 1995, Tamarkin has served as President & CEO of USCL Corporation in Sacramento, California.  USCL or Utility Services Customer Link developed the EMS-2020 product in response to the California Energy Crisis of 2001.  Since that time, Tamarkin has been in the forefront of worldwide efforts to teach energy regulators the effectiveness of Advanced Metering both as an energy conservation tool and a climate protection tool.  Tamarkin was directly responsible for the State of California launching the Statewide Pricing Project after stimulating CA Senate Bill 1976 which ultimately led to the California Public Utility Commission’s mandate that the State’s three largest electric utilities replace over 12 million power meters with an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) consisting of modern digital meters and fixed network bi-directional communications systems.

In the 2004-2005 time frame, Tamarkin was directly responsible for the State’s largest electric only utility, Southern California Edison, to reverse its position on AMI and positively embrace the concept and deployment of 5 million meters.

Tamarkin has testified at federal and state energy and utility commissions throughout the United States, India, Korea, Israel, and the EU. He has written trade magazine articles and numerous white papers on advanced metering and AMI.  Tamarkin’s work greatly aided Southern California Edison in the drafting of its ongoing AMI system specifications and the organization of their AMI RFI & RFP process.  In May 2004 Tamarkin was honored by California State Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister, State of Israel (January 2006) in a ceremony held in Tel Aviv, Israel.  Tamarkin and USCL were one of four U. S. entities so honored by the honorable Schwarzenegger and Olmert at the ceremony.

Later in May 2005, Tamarkin and USCL were co-sponsors of the first Annual Real-time Feedback Forum held in Toronto, Canada along with Southern California Edison and hosted by the Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI.)

In August 2006, Tamarkin was a guest speaker at West Coast Metering held in San Francisco, California and USCL was a sponsor of the show.

In November 2006 Tamarkin was the principal speaker at Electricity 2006, Eilat, Israel, on Demand Response as enabled by advanced metering. At Electricity 2006, Mr. Tamarkin was part of a panel of experts which included Jorge Vasconceelos, President of the EU Energy Commission and Mr. Emil Koifman, head of the metering division of Israel Electric in Tel Aviv, Israel.

In June 2007, Mr. Tamarkin was nominated for his third consecutive one year term as Chairman of the Advanced Metering, Demand Response, and Market-Based Pricing committee of the National Energy Marketers Association, Washington D. C. http://www.energymarketers.com

Mr. Tamarkin routinely speaks and presents at utility conventions, association meetings and conferences, internationally.

Mr. Tamarkin lives in the Sacramento, California area with his wife of twenty five years, Emily, and son Jeremy.  He may be contacted at USCL Corporation, 2433 Garfield Avenue, Carmichael, California 95608, 916-482-2000, tomer@usclcorp.com.

 

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