Orville Thomas was named CEO of the California Mobility Center in November of 2023 and has immediately gotten to work trying to build a 25-acre clean energy, power, and zero-emission innovation campus in Sacramento. Raising funds for $300 million project is the latest “big project” for Orville. In the last decade, he worked to get California’s high-speed rail project to groundbreaking, helped pass the state’s first gas tax increase in 20-years, and most recently, led the lobbying effort to reauthorize over $2 billion in state funding for zero-emission infrastructure and zero-emission programs.

Orville has a Bachelor of Art degree in Broadcast Journalism from San Francisco State University and worked as a news reporter in Redding, Chico, and Sacramento prior to graduate school. He has a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and serves as their Sacramento-area alumni coordinator. Outside of work and the Breathe California board, you can find Orville getting back into golf and walking to favorite restaurants with his wife and two dogs.