We are Radiant Labs
Radiant Labs co-founders Jeff Friesen, Ben Mailian & Adam Stenftenagel are also the co-founders of Snugg Home, acquired by Franklin Energy in 2024. Since 2010, Snugg Home has been providing home performance professionals with an all-in-one software for energy auditing & sales.
Snugg Home serves more than two thousand contracting companies in all 50 states & is featured in over 70 utility & government energy rebate programs. The Radiant Labs founders have continued to develop deep relationships with government & utility efficiency programs, energy auditors & contractors which has led to our focus on best in class energy modeling and data analytics for the emerging building electrification industry..
In sharing their thoughtful insights, telling questions & distinct pain points, these gracious colleagues, teammates & partners have guided the work we do, the software we create & the people we create it for.
Team & Leadership
Jeff Friesen
Jeff's career began in energy research, focusing on fusion, superconductivity, and atomic physics. After seven years in academia, he transitioned to working on climate models at NCAR.
Realizing that the biggest gap in solving climate change wasn't in the technical models but in social progress, Jeff shifted his efforts to produce nationally syndicated radio and television shows, start a non-profit, and successfully grow businesses through marketing and advertising, all to support climate and social justice.
He co-founded and led the software development team for Snugg Pro, a successful and highly regarded auditing and proposal tool for building contractors.
At Radiant Labs, Jeff leads the software and data teams, utilizing Clojure, Python, machine learning, and a modern web stack to tackle the challenges of transitioning our building infrastructure to clean electricity. Jeff holds a Master's in Physics from the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Benjamin Mailian
With deep knowledge of digital design and web development, Ben collaborates closely with Radiant Lab’s engineers to transform innovative ideas into compelling digital reality. Previously, Ben developed the international ecommerce activities of a luxury food company. He has also served as the head of the Technology Department at Mahatma Gandhi International School, a school in Ahmedabad, India.
Adam Stenftenagel
Adam handles the day-to-day operations of the company, investor relations, and product demonstrations. With expertise in building science, energy modeling, and energy audits, Adam excels at cost-benefit analysis for deep energy retrofits and supports the building science team at Radiant Labs. Prior to joining Jeff and Ben in founding Snugg Home and Radiant Labs, he founded Sustainably Built, a green building consulting firm and HERS rater that was sold in the spring of 2020. Additionally, Adam was a founding board member of the Boulder Green Building Guild and helped write Boulder County's 2006 green building codes, still among the most progressive energy codes in the country.
Kelly O'Connell
As the Director of Building Science for Radiant Labs, Kelly provides expertise in building science, energy efficiency programs, and sustainable development. She is leading Radiant's energy modeling, analysis, and quality assurance efforts. Prior to joining the team, Kelly worked as an engineer and project manager for an energy efficiency consulting firm specializing in impact evaluation and market characterization. She earned a Bachelors in Civil Engineering from Northeastern University. She also has a long history working with Engineers Without Borders and other nonprofits engaged in sustainable development in rural, international communities.
Joshua Mendoza
With broad experience in software development and DevOps practices, Joshua has worked in the education and fintech sectors, collaborating and leading teams of different sizes and participated in the design and implementation of elaborate software solutions.
Now at Radiant Labs, he leads and oversees the development of several products and takes active participation with the systems involved.
Jill Pinsky
Jill Pinsky is a Building Science Engineer at Radiant Labs working to develop massively scalable energy models across all building sectors. She holds a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering with a focus on decarbonization and high performance infrastructure. Prior to joining Radiant Labs, she provided technical expertise to utility companies and governments on demand side management programs and distributed energy resource planning. She has extensive experience analyzing new and existing buildings with energy modeling software and is a dedicated sustainability professional.
Charles Whittingham
Charles ("Charlie") Whittingham is a senior executive with over 40 years of experience crafting sales and revenue strategies, managing, mentoring, and motivating high performance teams and building successful companies both large and pure start up.
Rooted most deeply in all forms of media and digital monetization, since 2015 Charlie has worked across a variety of industries including ecommerce software, contactless payments and a series of sustainable initiatives including urban agriculture, impact product and design, clean/green home building and now home electrification modeling with Radiant Labs.
As Director of Business Development Charlie works closely with Radiant's executive team to develop revenue strategy, prioritization, and go-to-market execution.