I was born in New York City to my Guatemalan father who met my American mother, a first generation American born to two German Jewish refugees, in New York while here in the US studying for his PhD. When I was eight months old, we moved to Guatemala. We spent the next sixteen years moving around in Central America and Europe. I attended first grade at the US army base school in Karlsruhe, Germany. Six schools later, I went to a catholic co-ed high school, Academia del Perpetuo Socorro- Our Lady of Perpetual Help, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Then I attended Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania where although I started as a physics major, I ended up majoring in economics. After college I worked for an advertising agency headquartered on Madison Avenue in New York City, McCaffrey and McCall, since bought out by Saatchi and Saatchi Advertising. Not happy, I applied for an International MBA program and spent a year studying at ESLSCA Paris Business School. On my way back home I detoured to Israel, met the man who was destined to become the father of my children and traveled with him throughout Australia and Asia.
When I was hired by an Israeli software start-up to head their US division, we finally came and settled down in the SF Bay Area. We sold that start-up to Intel Corp. After that, I ran an auto repair shop in Sunnyvale. During that time, I became an industry representative to the Bureau of Automotive Repair, chaired a taskforce on Governor Schwarzenegger's Conference on Entrepreneurship and was the industry delegate to the Western Regional White House Conference.
In 2015, I ran for Redwood City City Council and more recently in 2022, I ran for California State Assembly D21. Professionally, I am a multi-lingual (English, French, Hebrew & Spanish), multi-cultural environmental entrepreneur. I helped build AirSpeQ, a particulate matter sensor developer in Berkeley CA funded by NASA, NSF and NIH. Most recently we launched BlueDesal, a Sausalito based start-up, commercializing small scale wave powered desalination pods to make water affordable for everyone.
I have two children and two grandchildren. My daughter graduated from Sequoia High School, attended Foothill College and is a certified neurofeedback therapist. She is also the proud mother of two beautiful daughters. My son graduated from Kehillah JHS and Notre Dame de Namur and is now working for TigerGraph. For thirteen years, I lived on the water at Docktown, on Redwood Creek. I have always been passionate about the environment and sustainable living.
Professional Linkedin profile: www.linkedin.com/in/taniasole
Being vocal:
India Smart Utility Week March. 2024
Speaking with others at the Planning CommissionMy comments are on at 10:41.