About Home Run Financing
We believe all homeowners should be able to upgrade to a safe, comfortable, efficient home.
Home Run Financing was founded in 2014, as PACE Funding, by a group of senior financial service and renewable energy executives with a passion for the potential of distributed solar energy. Their mission was to not only help finance the roll out of residential solar and energy efficiency measures but also to help ensure that all homeowners have access to improvements that make their homes safer, more comfortable, and more energy efficient.
They realized that traditional home improvement financing options exclude many homeowners in under-banked communities or demographics who may not have strong credit scores or the cash to pay for such projects. As a result, households that have the most to gain from modern, home-improvement technologies are often unable to participate in the transition to products such as solar, high-efficiency heating, cooling, and roofing, or upgrades that protect homes in the face of increasing hurricanes, wildfires, and drought.
Enter Home Run Financing. Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) is innovative home improvement financing that completely rethinks the traditional underwriting criteria for home improvement loans. As a result, PACE provides financial access to homeowners who may not have other options for participating in the modernization of homes in the United States.
Home Run Financing group has helped tens of thousands of homeowners upgrade their homes. We are active in three states and over 830 communities. We are constantly expanding coverage and exploring additional financial innovations that will further enable financial inclusion in home improvement technologies.
In 2021, the company saw an opportunity to expand its financing choices to homeowners by offering an unsecured loan for home improvements giving its customers a very different option. By expanding beyond PACE financing, the name ‘PACE Funding’ was no longer an accurate description of the company. The company changed its name to “Home Run Financing” because its combination of financing products are a “home run” solution for both contractors and homeowners.
Home Run Financing Leadership
Robert Giles
Chief Executive Officer
Board Member, PACENation
Mr. Giles brings 25+ years of experience in public finance banking and solar photovoltaic sales channel management and finance. Bob was the founder and CEO of Ready Solar, which he sold to SunEdison in 2010. Ready Solar was the first company to productize residential solar systems to allow the HVAC, roofing and electrical trade contractor as well as home improvement channels to enter the residential solar business.
Prior to Ready Solar, Bob was a Managing Director in the Municipal Finance Groups at both Bank of America and Merrill Lynch for a combined 18 years. Bob led the Private Activity Bond Departments at both firms specializing in Industrial Development and other Exempt Facility Bond categories. Bob received his MBA from University of Southern California.
Mark Schmidt
President and Chief Operations Officer
Mr. Schmidt brings 15+ years of solar experience in structured finance (loans, leases, etc.) for residential solar systems and setting up sales operations support for solar dealer networks. At SunEdison, Mark drafted the company’s first dealer agreement, created the financial model for the first residential solar lease and helped the sales team to sign the first authorized residential dealers. Prior to SunEdison, Mark worked at SunPower in the same capacity and created the dealer portal which included a suite of software tools for dealers. Mark was also involved with strategic planning, legal documentation with partners and customers, credit policies and procedures. Mark received his MBA from University of California at Davis.
Dianne Chervenka
Chief Financial Officer
Dianne Chervenka is the Chief Financial Officer, with more than 20+ years of finance and human resources experience from a variety of high-tech industries, managing companies from beginning start-ups through exit strategies.
Dianne began her career in public accounting at Grant Thornton and then moved into Silicon Valley Start-ups, focusing on growth, capital raises, cash management and exit strategies. Her longest tenure was at Ingenuity Systems where she managed the financial operations from initial product launch to a $25M revenue stream and eventually through a successful acquisition by QIAGEN. Dianne is a Certified Public Accountant and received both her MBA and BA from San Jose State University.
James Vergara
Chief Investment Officer
James Vergara is responsible for Home Run Financing’s capital markets and funding activities, including overseeing the company’s transition to a structured finance vehicle and managing Home Run Financing’s three private ABS securitizations totaling over $170 million. He brings over 16 years of municipal finance, fixed income and derivatives experience and over five years of PACE administration experience to Home Run Financing.
James began his career in New York at Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank. At Deutsche Bank, he was responsible for the Firm’s principal PACE financing business and worked to gain program administration approvals in California, Louisiana and New Jersey. Most recently, James established and launched the Spruce PACE program at Spruce Finance, a seasoned consumer lender in the solar and energy efficiency financing markets. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
Ryan Griffin
General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer
Ryan Griffin has 15+ years of legal experience and is a member of the state bars of California and Washington, and is also a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the U.S. While in private practice, Ryan developed extensive real estate litigation experience, representing contractors, developers, homeowners, and mortgage and other lien holders.
Ryan also had a successful practice as outside counsel, advising both early stage and publicly traded companies through corporate formation, funding, mergers and acquisition, real estate deals, negotiations, litigation, and navigating compliance and regulation issues in emerging industries.
Rachel Hobbs
Vice President of Market Development
Mrs. Hobbs worked in the Chief Executive’s department of a local UK municipality servicing the Finance & General Purposes Committee and its subcommittees before leaving for Moscow, Russia where she was the Marketing Manager for the Tax & Legal Services department of PwC. Having settled in the US , Rachel successfully developed, implemented and expanded the multimillion dollar SunPower Rebate Assignment nationwide for installers and energy companies.
Rachel holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Kent at Canterbury with a post graduate diploma from the University of Westminster.
