Bret Gladfelty is an Advocate of The Apex Group as a governmental advocate specializing in technology, finance and tax related issues.
Bret started his advocacy role in 2012 working as an innovation analyst and advocate for Innovation State. He published several white papers promoting the benefits of doubling California’s research and development tax credit (RDC) and streamlining federal compliance for RDC sunset dates. This idea was first introduced into the California State Legislature in 2013. AB 653 (Perez) introduced the concept of doubling the R&D tax credit along with several other concepts for promoting innovation policy as a single package entitled the “California Innovation Jobs Act.”
In 2016, Bret drafted legislation to create the implementation of a state operated digital identity program for California residents. This was introduced as AB 1296 (Quirk-Silva), which would require the Secretary of Government Operations to appoint 10 people to serve as the members of the task force. The bill would require the task force to study the development of an e-identity program within California and to report its findings to the Legislature.
Prior to joining The Apex Group in 2017, Bret co-founded “Consens.io,” a public benefit corporation, focused on creating the first “Issues and Solutions” civic tech platform to help local leaders identify issues through community voting and create a dialog regarding possible solutions to community driven issues.
Bret is a graduate of Santa Clara University with a Bachelors of Science in Finance and with Minors in Philosophy and Economics in 2011.