Hermosa Beach Council candidate Rittenhouse cites his youthful energy, renewable energy experience
Daniel Rittenhouse is a founding partner in a renewable energy company. Photo courtesy of Rittenhouse for Council
by Daniel Blackburn
Daniel Rittenhouse touts his youth as an asset in his initial shot at public office, and the record shows he’s packed a lot of experience and successes into his 28 years. He’s one of five candidates eying a single seat on the Hermosa Beach City Council in an all mail-in election concluding May 11.
“The city can benefit from a younger council member, from someone with really modern concepts,” he often notes.
Born in the South Bay, Rittenhouse lived here until his parents moved to upstate New York. He went to public schools “my whole life,” he said — until his grade point average and athletic prowess earned him entry into a very private university, Harvard.
But before he even entered those hallowed, ivy-covered Crimson halls, Rittenhouse had made his presence known.
A frequent subject of newspaper feature articles as a baseball all-star, he once told a high school mentor, “Coach, I’m really not that smart: I just work hard.”
“Dan really is very smart,” that coach, Terry Jones, later told the Albany Times-Union, “and he accepts every challenge.”
That was in a 2012 article in that newspaper topped by this uncompromising headline, “Rittenhouse can do it all,” which starts like this: “Those around Dan Rittenhouse no longer are amazed at the ways in which he excels.”
“I’m always trying to get better and find new things to do,” Rittenhouse said then. “And,” the Albany newspaper reported, “he is good at everything. He’s a three-sport star at Saratoga with the unique combination of football, skiing and baseball.”
Even then he was forming his altruistic philosophies: “I want to leave a positive impact on the world. I don’t really know what the future holds,” Rittenhouse told a local newspaper, “The Saratogian,” that year. “I don’t want to be working in an office job. I want to be out in the world doing things and helping people and making a difference.”
During the summer after high school, Rittenhouse spent two weeks in Guatemala on a humanitarian mission for Refuge International. He had initiated contact with the organization seeking involvement.
“At night, I played soccer with the third-graders.” Rittenhouse recalled. “Overall, it was a great experience.”
He earned his degree in Political Science and Government, and quickly became a founding member of the Zions Bancorporation Power & Project Finance group. There, he helped pioneer a formula “providing structured credit facilities and advisory services to owners of utility-scale solar, wind, and storage power generation facilities across the United States.”
Rittenhouse sees his expertise in energy production playing a big part in Hermosa Beach’s future. He’s a principal in a company called Morpho Energy, which, according to its website, “provides affordable, reliable clean energy as a service through long-term energy sales agreements enabling enterprises, building owners, and utilities to save money, lower carbon emissions, and accelerate the transformation to the trillion-dollar electrified economy.”
In his position, Rittenhouse “focuses on renewable energy finance and development. He is responsible for corporate finance, forecasting and modeling, and advises on utility scale and energy storage projects,” the company’s website notes.
He campaigns on a position of protecting Hermosa Beach’s “unique character” and said he supports “protecting our South Bay environment by completing the storm water infiltration project and working with our neighbors in Redondo to get rid of the Redondo Power Plant.”
Win or lose next week, Rittenhouse said running for office has been “very rewarding… I’ve met so many great people.” ER