Dale Hill

Dale is the founder of ProTerra, based in Burlingame, California. ProTerra is the leading innovator of zero-emission, battery-electric buses. Dale got his start in the municipal bus industry when he bought Trans Tech in 1998, a Denver Colorado based bus manufacturing company that focused on building CNG hybrid buses. He says, "It was a company that was in trouble and I was able to buy that company ... and deliver the first hybrid electric buses in the United States ... That was the first ground up design of a new technology bus in the United States. As a result of the success of that bus, in 2004 the Federal Transit Administration came to me and said, 'We want somebody to design the bus of tomorrow, and we know we won't get that from a conventional bus manufacturer ... if we show you where there is some grant money will you put the old team back together?' and that's how ProTerra got started".

Dale is no newcomer to the world of sustainability, "I've always been interested in sustainability. Back in the 70s, I built a house that would have been a LEED silver house today. They didn't even have a word for that then".

Dale has witnessed the market for all electric busses explode in the last ten years. He says, "I feel blessed that I was able to be a part of that paradigm shift that's going on in transit. And why is that important? I have seven grandkids, and they're going to have kids someday, and I don't want those kids growing up with asthma. I want them growing up in an atmosphere where the air is clean that they breathe, and they don't have the health issues that we see with children that grow up in large cities like say Los Angeles".