Cornyn, a Republican, was re-elected to his second term in the U.S. Senate in 2008. The current chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, he sits on the Finance, Judiciary, Armed Services and Budget committees. Cornyn is also a member of the Senate Republican High Tech Task Force, the Congressional Oversight Group on Trade and the President’s Export Council.
Castro was elected mayor of San Antonio in 2009 at age 36 and is currently the youngest mayor of a major American city. He previously served as a city councilman from 2001 to 2005. His initiatives in office include the city's "Mission Verde" sustainability plan, which focuses on workforce training and the development of energy-efficient technologies.
Ritter, a Nederland Republican, has represented District 21 in the Texas House since 1999. He chairs the House Natural Resources Committee and sits on the Ways and Means Committee, of which he is a former vice chairman.
Mason served as general manager of the Lower Colorado River Authority from 2007 until July of this year. He previously served as assistant counsel for the Texas Department of Water Resources and as director of the Water Quality Division of the Texas Water Commission.
Sansom is the executive director of the River Systems Institute at Texas State University in San Marcos. He is a former executive director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the Texas Nature Conservancy and founded the Parks and Wildlife Foundation of Texas. His writing has appeared in Texas Monthly, The Texas Observer and Texas Highways.
Huffman is the Texas state director of the Nature Conservancy, a national environmental organization that works to preserve natural systems. She served as the assistant city manager of Austin from 2002 to 2008, focusing on watershed protection and economic development.
Webber is the associate director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas. He is also the co-director of the university's Clean Energy Incubator and an assistant professor of mechanical engineering.
Miller joined Summit Power in 2008 to work on the Texas Clean Energy Project. Previously, she served as mayor of Dallas from 2002 to 2007, receiving a Climate Protection Award from the Environmental Protection Agency for leading a statewide opposition against old-technology coal plants proposed for Texas. Before serving as mayor, she was a member of the Dallas City Council and, before that, an award-winning journalist.
Stanek leads new business development for research and development and infrastructure planning for advanced technical applications. She previously directed the fuel cell vehicle demonstration program and continues to lead business development for the Chevrolet Volt and fuel cell infrastructure initiatives related to GM’s electric vehicles. Stanek also leads many bio-based fuel policy and commercial efforts.
Smitherman was appointed to the Texas Railroad Commission on July 8, 2011. He previously served as chairman of the Public Utility Commission of Texas for four years. He is currently vice chairman of the Governor's Advisory Panel on Federal Environmental Regulation and has been a member of the U.S. Department of Energy's Electric Advisory Committee since 2008.
Patterson is serving his third term as Texas Land Commissioner. He previously served as a state senator for six years and as a state representative for eight years. A 1969 graduate of Texas A&M University, Patterson served in the U.S. Marine Corps for more than 20 years before retiring from the Marine Corps Reserve as a lieutenant colonel in 1993.
Keffer, an Eastland Republican, has represented District 60 in the Texas House since 1997. Keffer chairs the Energy Resources Committee and sits on the Natural Resources and Calendars committees.
Kallenberg is the director of the documentaries Haynesville: A Nation's Hunt for an Energy Future, which examines the discovery of a vast natural gas field in Louisiana, and Eating Levi, about the world tamale-eating champion. His writing has been featured in The New York Times, Esquire, Texas Monthly, and the Austin American-Statesman’s XL magazine.
Furnace is the president of the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association, a trade association representing the interests of more than 2,300 independent oil and natural gas producers and royalty owners throughout Texas. Furnace previously served as chief of staff and legal counsel to Chairman Victor Carrillo of the Texas Railroad Commission, where he was the chairman's top policy adviser.
Blackmon is a senior adviser for government and external affairs for the El Paso Exploration and Production Company. Before joining El Paso, he was the manager for Shell E&P’s internal and external communications function. Blackmon is the past chairman of the Department of the Interior’s Royalty Policy Committee and the longtime vice chairman of IPAA’s Land and Royalty Committee.
Duncan is a research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas. His research focuses on the scientific, environmental and public-policy aspects of unconventional natural gas production, the water-energy nexus, and carbon capture and storage. Duncan is also the acting manager of BEG's Gulf Coast Carbon Center and an agency expert on clean-coal technologies.
Jaffe is the director of the Baker Institute Energy Forum at Rice University, where she is also the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies. She served as a member of the reconstruction and economy working group of the Iraq Study Group in 2006 and co-authored Oil, Dollars, Debt and Crises: The Curse of Black Gold in 2010.
Smith has been director of the Austin office of Public Citizen, a national consumer rights advocacy group, since 1985. The group lobbied the Texas Legislature to create the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan in 2001. He also serves on the boards of Clean Water Action and the Texas Wind Power Coalition.
Shaw has served as chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality since 2009. He is an associate professor in the biological and agricultural engineering department at Texas A&M University and holds a doctoral degree in agricultural engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Doggett is the president and chief executive officer of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages 85 percent of the state’s power grid and delivers electricity to 23 million Texans. Before joining ERCOT, he worked as an independent project management consultant in the Texas market and chaired the Texas Nodal Transition Plan Task Force from 2005 to 2008.
Marston is the director of the National Energy Program at the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental advocacy group. While at the Defense Fund, he helped create the Pecan Street Project, a coalition of Austin research, business and nonprofit groups that studies efficient energy delivery systems.
Pickens founded and chairs BP Capital Management, a private, energy-oriented investment fund based in Dallas. In 2008, he presented the Pickens Plan, a long-term policy proposal to reduce American independence on imported oil by investing heavily in wind and natural gas power. In 2009, Time included him in the “Time 100,” the magazine's listing of the world’s most influential people.
Spanjian joined Houston mayor Annise Parker's administration as sustainability director in April 2010. She oversees the city's environmental quality, food production, transportation and energy efficiency initiatives. Previously, she served as an assistant general manager of external affairs at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and as government affairs director for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.
Lucia Athens was appointed Austin’s first chief sustainability officer last year. Athens spent the last decade leading the city of Seattle’s green building program. She also has worked on sustainable design projects with various nongovernmental organizations, including the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, Rocky Mountain Institute and U.S. Global Green. Her book Building an Emerald City: A Guide to Creating Green Building Policies was published last year.
Barnett-White is the sustainability and special projects administrator for the city of Denton. She has worked with the city for more than 17 years on projects related to energy efficiency, environmental preservation and sustainability. She has overseen Denton’s greenhouse gas inventories and is now working on a sustainability plan and other city projects.
Lash was appointed Renewable Resources Manager for the city of McAllen’s Public Works Recycling Center last year. She oversees the city’s Recycling, Brush Collection, Urban Forestry and Composting divisions. Before managing the Recycling Division, she was the executive director for Keep McAllen Beautiful, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate the public on environmental preservation, sustainability and beautification.
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