A banker re-energizes

Erik Katz had had enough of Wall Street.

"After some 20 years in banking, I was searching for a new challenge, something more entrepreneurial, that included elements of a higher calling," says Katz, 43, who ended a 17-year career at Blackstone Group LP in June. "Given the market conditions and what I had accomplished, I was looking for a little lifestyle change. I wanted to create better boundaries and change priorities in my life with my family and do other things that I had wanted to do."

So this month, Katz became chief operating officer and executive vice president of Blue Source LLC, a developer of projects that reduce greenhouse gases. Based in Salt Lake City, Blue Source was a client of Katz's at Blackstone, where he was a senior managing director. Katz is based in Blue Source's New York office, where he expects to have a hand in hiring and business development. He will also oversee relationships with the company's investors.

Katz met Greg Spencer, a co-founder of Blue Source, more than 10 years ago, when Spencer was treasurer of American Stores Co., which Katz advised and helped sell to Albertson's Inc. in 1998. They reconnected in 2005, when Katz agreed to assist Blue Source in finding a partner and capital. He introduced Spencer and Blue Source co-founder, Bill Townsend, to First Reserve Corp., an energy-centric private equity firm that became a major Blue Source shareholder in 2006. "It really wasn't my industry. I had generally done retail, healthcare and industrials, but this blossomed into something really interesting," says Katz.

More recently, Katz advised Blue Source on its Carbon Infrastructure Investment Fund, which received $500 million from Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC and $25 million from the founders. The fund closed in August.

Katz, a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, joined Blackstone in 1991. He advised Albertson's on its $17.4 billion sale to an investor consortium and Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. through its bankruptcy process. Before Blackstone, he worked at Credit Suisse First Boston and Merrill Lynch & Co. After all those years on Wall Street, he says the opportunity to work at Blue Source has energized him. "You are actually doing something socially redeeming for the environment. It sort of got me re-inspired."