MEET ANDREW

MY WORK & BACKGROUND

For the past twenty years I have worked on creating a vibrant renewable energy economy in Vermont. My work promoting local renewable energy businesses is rooted in my first job in Vermont working as a VISTA Volunteer to eliminate energy poverty and provide fuel assistance. It was a valuable experience that taught me about the many Vermonters that struggle to afford warmth, that suffer in cold homes with poor indoor air quality and dangerous heating systems.

After my VISTA service I got a part-time job with the Public Service Department (Vermont’s energy office) working on renewable energy and energy efficiency policy and projects. One project was to help organize Vermont’s emerging clean energy businesses. That project soon became my job for nine years as the founding executive director of the trade association Renewable Energy Vermont (REV). Twelve years ago I returned to the Public Service Department (PSD) as the Director of the Clean Energy Development Fund (CEDF), where I have engaged in renewable energy policy and legislative work for the PSD in addition to managing the CEDF.

My work at the CEDF and REV has brought me into close contact with many small Vermont companies and local entrepreneurs. These businesses want to work through open and transparent markets to build a Vermont energy economy based on local renewable energy generation and energy efficiency. I have seen them be most successful with the greatest benefit to all Vermonters when legislators and government officials were active and engaged with stakeholders in a just transition to new energy markets that work for all Vermonters.

Prior to moving permanently to Vermont in 1995, to be with my wife (then fiancé), Marianne Donahue, I served as a Peace Corps environmental education volunteer in the Republic of Panama. I am originally from Greeley, Colorado.

In 1998 we moved to Marshfield, VT where my wife, our three children, and I have lived except when lived in Montpelier from 2017 to 2022. During my time in Marshfield I served on the volunteer fire department, the Selectboard, as a Justice of the Peace, and on the town energy committee. My work for the town of Marshfield taught me how the many hard working Vermonters keep our towns operating and our communities strong and safe through their volunteer work. Often I saw local on-the-ground common sense find solutions that State laws failed to address.

My collection of Vermont experiences: with low-income home owners, with high-tech energy companies, as a volunteer fire fighter, in State and local government, as an advocate, and as a State Senator for the past 4 years, all propel me to be a candidate for re-election in 2022.