Joe Cresko

I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, and received degrees in Chemical Engineering from Bucknell University and Engineering Sciences from the Pennsylvania State University. After 4 years running a start-up company, I took a position with the Electrotechnology Applications Center in Bethlehem, PA. Our goal has been to educate manufacturers that a smaller energy and environmental footprint is not only good corporate citizenship, but also advantageous to their bottom line. My role at ETAC is technical leadership, broadly in sustainability and specifically in the area of industrial process heating.

In 2008 I was selected as a Science and Technology Fellow through the American Association for the Advancement of Science (http://fellowships.aaas.org/). My Fellowship appointment is at the US Department of Energy in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), where I have been able to pursue some of the big issues related to energy efficiency. One major accomplishment of my Fellowship has been co-authoring the Industrial Energy Efficiency Technical Action Plan (TAP) for the US Government – one of ten TAPS produced by the 17 major economies for the Major Economies Forum on Energy & Climate that were released in Copenhagen in December (http://www.majoreconomiesforum.org/).

Most recently I architected an international energy efficiency effort (Global Superior Energy Performance or "GSEP") that cuts across industrial operations and commercial buildings; this initiative will be announced by Secretary Chu at the upcoming Clean Energy Ministerial on July 19-20 (http://www.cleanenergyministerial.org/), and my next big project will be leading an Industry Energy Futures study, one of several large studies to develop a comprehensive national strategy to achieve high carbon emissions reductions while positioning the U.S. as a global leader in clean generation and efficient use of energy in the industrial, transportation, buildings, and power sectors. The results and recommendations will be used to inform research, development, demonstration, and deployment (RDD&D) on industrial energy technologies in the United States.

I spend as much time as I can outdoors, most of it running, and have competed in too many marathons. I currently live in Arlington, VA where my wife Lori Scott is the Chief Information Officer for NatureServe. If you like maps and conservation check out her cool project LandScope America: http://www.landscope.org/