MARK DUVALL

Director of electric transportation and energy storage, Electric Power Research Institute

Chosen because: Duvall, 43, led the institute to become a collaboration hub between automakers and utilities. The largest such collaboration, with General Motors, started shortly after the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid was announced. He also led EPRI to organize a national stakeholder group, the Infrastructure Working Council, to help standardize how plug-in vehicles connect to and communicate with the electric grid.

Quote: "The world has really changed rapidly in the last couple of years. We've gone from wondering, thinking that electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids and other plug-in vehicles could be here someday, to realizing that they are here."