Dan William Reicher

Bio

Dan Reicher is Executive Director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University, a joint center of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford Law School, where he also holds faculty positions. Reicher came to Stanford in 2011 from Google, where he served since 2007 as Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives.

Reicher has more than 25 years of experience in energy and environmental policy, finance, and technology.  He has served three Presidents including in the Clinton administration as Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and Department of Energy Chief of Staff, as a member of President Obama’s Transition Team and Co-chair of the Energy and Environment Team for Obama, and as a staff member of President Carter’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island.

Reicher is a member of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the National Academy of Sciences Board on Energy and Environmental Systems and co-chairman of the Board of the American Council on Renewable Energy. He also serves on the boards of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy and American Rivers, the Advanced Energy Economy Advisory Committee, the Vermont Law School Environmental Advisory Committee, and is an advisor to Renewable Funding LLC and Sighten. He is also Senior Advisor to the Atlantic Wind Connection, a project backed by Google and other investors to build an underwater transmission line for offshore wind power and grid reliability along the US east coast.

In 2012 Reicher received an honorary doctorate from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry and was also named one of the five most influential figures in U.S. clean energy by Oilprice.Com.
Before his position at Google, Reicher was President and Co-founder of New Energy Capital Corp., a private equity firm funded by the California State Teachers Retirement System and Vantage Point Venture Partners to invest in clean energy projects. He also was Executive Vice President of Northern Power Systems, one of the nation’s oldest renewable energy companies and a recipient of significant venture capital investment. Reicher was also an adjunct professor at the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Vermont Law School.

In the Clinton Administration, Reicher served for eight years at the Department of Energy as Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Energy, and Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs.  He also worked for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the World Resources Institute.

Earlier in his career Reicher was as an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, Assistant Attorney General in Massachusetts, a law clerk to a federal district court judge in Boston, and a legal assistant in the Hazardous Waste Section of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Reicher holds a BA in biology from Dartmouth College and a JD from Stanford Law School. He also studied at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and MIT.

An avid kayaker, Reicher was a member of the first expedition on record to navigate the entire 1888-mile Rio Grande (with support from the National Geographic Society) and to kayak the Yangtze River in China. He is married to Carole Parker.  Carole and Dan have three children and live in Piedmont California.

Academic Degrees

• BA, Biology, Dartmarth
• JD, Stanford Law

Professional Experience

• Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, Google, 2007
• U.S. Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, Clinton Administration

Teaching

Degree Courses

2017-18

GSBGEN 335: Clean Energy Project Development and Finance

This case study-oriented course will focus on the critical skills needed to evaluate, develop, finance (on a non-recourse basis), and complete standalone energy and infrastructure projects. The primary course materials will be documents from...

2016-17

GSBGEN 335: Clean Energy Project Development and Finance

This case study-oriented course will focus on the critical skills needed to evaluate, develop, finance (on a non-recourse basis), and complete standalone energy and infrastructure projects. The primary course materials will be documents from...