Charles Russomanno is a special advisor for the Office of Technology Transitions (OTT). Previously, Charles worked in the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, (EERE) Office of Weatherization and Intergovernmental Programs (OWIP) where he managed and administered a $296 million portfolio under DOE's Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grant Program.

Charles has over 20 years of experience in federal energy R&D management. He has served as DOE Portfolio Manager of EERE SBIR and STTR Programs. In this capacity, he was responsible for oversight and management of a Department wide R&D portfolio of energy technologies comprised of 290 awards valued at $170M.

In 2009 and 2010, he developed and spear-headed the DOE Phase III Xlerator Program for the Department. A first-of-its-kind, the DOE Phase III Xlerator is a $57M competitive federal grants program that builds off the SBIR and STTR programs by giving qualified U.S. small businesses the staying power they need to bring their energy technology projects closer to commercialization.

While leading the DOE Phase III Xlerator, Charles was responsible for planning and launching the DOE Small Business and Clean Energy Alliance (CEA) Partnership, the first national network of business incubators focused solely on clean energy technology RD3. Through CEA's nationwide incubator membership DOE provided a complete range of services to U.S. small businesses that were developing and pursuing the commercialization of clean energy technologies. The services included entrepreneurial mentoring, technical support, business planning, finance and banking, legal and accounting, marketing, communications, outreach, networking and accessing capital.

In October, 2010, the Small Business Technology Council of the National Small Business Association honored Charles and Under Secretary Kristina Johnson with the 2010 National Milton Stewart Award. This award recognized their outstanding contributions to U.S. small business technology companies and their steadfast commitment to promoting and defending American small business. In December, 2010, Charles was recognized by The SBIR Gateway as 2010 "SBIR Person of Year" for his extraordinary accomplishments in championing the DOE SBIR Phase III Xlerator Program which awarded $57M. Charles started his science and technology adventures in the private sector as a product development chemist, for Block Drug Company in Jersey City, NJ, later purchased by Glaxo Smith Kline, Inc. There he developed and patented two inventions before moving to the government sector at DOE in 1989.

Charles received a Bachelor of Arts from Drew University, Madison, N.J., with a major in chemistry, and a Master of Science in Chemistry from Rutgers University (Thesis, 1990: Protein Secondary Structure Determination Using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy: Amide I, II and III)