Candidacy Statement for 2011 RE-AMP Steering Committee Elections – Bentham Paulos, Energy Foundation

Why are you interested in serving as a working group leader or at-large representative on the Steering Committee, and what do you think you would bring to that position?

I would like to serve on the Steering Committee to help the Energy Foundation remain coordinated with the REAMP community. It is an opportunity to share our strategies and learn from successful strategies in the REAMP community. I would bring to that position over 15 years of energy policy work in the Midwest and nationally, including 11 years as a grantmaker. I would be backed up on the committee by our Midwest advisor, Chris Deisinger, and will communicate REAMP activities to other program staff in our San Francisco office.

List two groups in the RE-AMP Network you have collaborated with, and briefly describe your work with these groups.

I have worked on Midwestern energy issues since the early 1990s, starting as a research intern at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge. I continued working for UCS during grad school for energy policy at UW-Madison, as well as with the Energy Center of Wisconsin. After graduating, I started consulting and writing for UCS, Renew Wisconsin, Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade, Windpower Monthly and Successful Farming magazines, AWEA, Enron Wind, and the Energy Foundation. I was hired in 2000 to run the Utility Efficiency & Renewables program for the Energy Foundation, later launching the Biofuels program. EF has had a long-standing partnership with the McKnight Foundation to support Midwest activity, so I have worked on grants with many Midwestern NGOs, in the area of efficiency, renewable power and biofuels.

If you are elected to the Steering Committee, what would you do to improve RE-AMP, and/or what new perspective(s) would you bring to the Steering Committee?

I am especially interested in increasing REAMP’s capabilities and attention to job creation and economic development policies. While we have long framed our messages in terms of economic benefits, we have done much less to recruit and support pro-business messengers, and to design and adopt economic development policies that can benefit clean energy.