Ms. Heidi VanGenderen
Senior Energy Advisor
Worldwatch Institute
Ms. VanGenderen is currently team leader for the Worldwatch Institute’s natural gas and sustainable energy initiative which will build coalition support for and document the efficacy of expanded use of natural gas, renewable energy and energy efficiency as a means of lowering greenhouse gas emissions and moving forward from primary reliance on coal. In the first quarter of 2009, Ms. VanGenderen was nominated and selected to participate as one of fourteen Chevening fellows from eleven countries who gathered to study and explore finance and investment in a low-carbon economy in Edinburgh and London. The Chevening Fellowship is conducted by the U.K. Foreign Commonwealth Office and the British Council. From 2007 and 2008, Ms. VanGenderen served as Senior Advisor on Climate Change and Energy for Colorado Governor, Bill Ritter, Jr. As Colorado’s first Gubernatorial Climate Advisor, Ms. VanGenderen oversaw the creation of the State’s first Climate Action Plan. From 1999 to 2007, Ms. VanGenderen served as senior staff to the Wirth Chair in Environmental and Community Development Policy at the University of Colorado at Denver. The non-traditional Chair focused on bridging the gap between the theory and practice of public policy as it impedes or promotes sustainable development. As Director of the Colorado Business Energy Partnership, a project of the Wirth Chair, Ms. VanGenderen worked extensively with the business community on voluntary strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to address the imperative of climate change. Ms. VanGenderen also served as Deputy Director of the Presidential Climate Action Project which developed a comprehensive and non-partisan plan for presidential leadership rooted in climate science and designed to ignite innovation. Earlier in her career, she served as the first executive director of a statewide conservation coalition in Colorado (now the Colorado Environmental Coalition). She has worked for over three decades on the education, advocacy, politics and policy of sustainable use of natural resources with a particular focus on energy and climate change in the non-profit, academic, public and for-profit sectors. She is a graduate of Carleton College and a third-generation Colorado native.
