David Crane
Director, Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations
David Crane is a leading business voice in the field of sustainability, clean energy, and climate change. Previously Crane was the CEO of Climate Real Impact Solutions and served on the boards of Heliogen Inc., Source Global, JERA Co. Inc., and Tata Steel Ltd. along with the not-for-profits Elemental Excelerator and The Climate Group NA.
Prior to Climate Real Impact Solutions, Crane was CEO of NRG. During his 12-year tenure, he took NRG from Chapter 11 to a Fortune 200 company. Crane also led NRG to the forefront of next-generation clean energy development through large-scale initiatives in utility scale renewables (now Clearway), residential solar, post combustion carbon capture (Petra Nova), and DC fast charging (EVGO).
Prior to NRG, Crane was CEO of International Power plc, a United Kingdom-domiciled FTSE 100 company. During Crane’s tenure, NRG won numerous industry, community, and environmental awards, including multiple “transaction of the year” awards. Crane was named Energy Industry “CEO of the Year” by EnergyBiz in 2010, top CEO in the electric utility sector by Institutional Investor in 2011, and “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Ernst & Young in 2010. Crane was also awarded the Corporate Environmental Leadership award by GlobalGreen in 2014 and the Equinox Solar Champion Award and The C.K. Prahalad Award for Global Sustainability Business Leadership, both in 2015. NRG, under Crane’s leadership, was a key member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership from 2008 to 2011.
Crane is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Princeton University.
Kelly Cummins
Deputy Director, Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations
Kelly Cummins is the Deputy Director for the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In this role, she is responsible for delivering more than $25 billion in funding to support large-scale clean energy demonstration projects.
Cummins has worked in the field of national and energy security at DOE for more than 20 years. Prior to her role in OCED, Cummins served as the Associate Deputy Director for Field Operations in the Office of Science, where she was responsible for management and operational oversight of the Office of Science field complex, including 10 national laboratories executing leading scientific research and development. Prior to that, Cummins served as the Deputy Assistant Deputy Administrator and Program Executive Officer for Production Modernization in the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) Office of Defense Programs. In this role, she was responsible for U.S. efforts to modernize and sustain the nuclear weapons production enterprise. From 2013 to 2017, Cummins was a Senior Advisor to former Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, focusing on project management and national security issues as well as enterprise risk management.
Cummins also previously headed efforts to dispose of surplus U.S. highly enriched uranium and weapon-grade plutonium as the NNSA Associate Assistant Deputy Administrator for Fissile Materials Disposition. In addition, as the Director of Former Soviet Union and Asian Threat Reduction in the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, she led efforts to remove highly enriched uranium and plutonium from vulnerable locations around the world.
Prior to joining the Department, Cummins worked in the U.S. Senate for the Assistant Majority Leader and in the private sector for a consulting company supporting the Department of Defense.
Cummins has a Master of Science degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She currently resides with her husband and two sons in Washington, DC.
Caroline Grey
Chief of Staff, Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations
Caroline Grey serves as Chief of Staff in the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED). She has over 10 years of management experience, including her most recent role as the White House Liaison in the Office of the Secretary, responsible for implementing the President’s agenda at DOE, as well as the recruitment, appointment and success of DOE’s political appointees, a cohort of over 100 current and emerging leaders in the clean energy field. Prior to joining DOE, she played integral roles in three winning Presidential campaigns, setting department and organizational priorities for then Vice President Biden as a States Director, leading President Obama’s internal polling as a Director on the Analytics team of the 2012 re-elect and beginning her career as an organizer and data analyst for Senator Obama during the 2007 Iowa caucus. She has deep experience scaling organizations from 3 to 3,000, never straying from impact or joy.
Grey co-founded Civis Analytics in 2013, a data science and technology firm that empowers organizations to engage the people they care about most, with clients in electoral politics, media, as well as state and local government. In 2016, the company closed a $22 million Series A funding round led by Drive Capital, with participation from Eric Schmidt, Verizon Ventures, and WPP.
Raised in Berkeley, CA, her family runs dim sum restaurants in the Cleveland area. She lives in Washington, DC.
Keith Boyea
Director, Contracts & Awards, Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations
Keith Boyea serves as the Director, Contracts & Awards for the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED). In his role, he is responsible for planning, soliciting, awarding, and administering contracts and financial assistance instruments to carry out OCED’s $20B portfolio of demonstration projects. Boyea joined OCED in August 2022.
Boyea has more than 20 years of experience in contracts and awards. Most recently, he was the Head of Contracting Activity at the National Science Foundation where he oversaw contracts and cooperative agreements for NSF’s Major Research Facilities, including Antarctic science operations. Prior to NSF, Boyea worked at the Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) where he supported FRA’s research and development efforts. Boyea is an Air Force veteran with deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
Boyea has an M.S. from Georgetown University and a B.S. from the United States Air Force Academy. He lives with his wife, Nicole, in Washington, DC.
Howard Dickenson
Director, Business Operations, Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations
Dr. Howard Dickenson is Director, Business Operations for the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED). In this role, he is responsible for the budget, workforce management, and administrative support services to help OCED deliver more than $20 billion provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support large-scale clean energy demonstration projects.
Dickenson has worked in the field of national and energy security at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for 12 years. Prior to OCED, Dickenson served as the Acting Associate Administrator for External Affairs in the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Before that, he served as NNSA’s Acting Deputy Associate Administrator for Management responsible for NNSA human resources, business operations, and overseas operations.
Dickenson has more than 20 years of government experience in energy, national security policy, and budget formulation. He previously served as NNSA’s Deputy Associate Deputy Administrator for Budget, overseeing a staff of 118 federal employees responsible for NNSA’s budget formulation process, budget execution, NNSA financial accounting, and NNSA’s auditing divisions. From mid- 2009 through October 2011, he was the Assistant Director for Recovery Act Operations at DOE tasked with supporting the Department’s execution of $36.2 billion appropriated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“Recovery Act”). From mid-2004 through mid-2009, he worked at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the International Affairs Division, with responsibilities for the Iraq reconstruction programs, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, West Bank/Gaza, Jordan, Iran, and the Peace Corps. From 1999 through mid-2004, he worked at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an intelligence analyst.
Prior to serving in the government, Dickenson taught international security and statistics courses at the University of Southern California School of Business and California State University at Fullerton.
He holds a Ph.D. in Political Economy and Public Policy from the University of Southern California and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Illinois. He lives in Maryland with his wife and two children.
Melissa Klembara
Director, Portfolio Strategy, Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations
Melissa Klembara is Director, Portfolio Strategy in the Department of Energy’s new Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED), which is executing on over $20 billion in pilot and demonstration scale clean energy technologies funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Prior to joining OCED, Klembara was a Program Manager in the Advanced Manufacturing Office, leading over $200 million in large, public-private RD&D consortia in areas such as process intensification, energy-water-food nexus, and sustainable manufacturing. Klembara was also a Chief of Staff for both the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Renewable Power. Additionally, she spent several years as a Technology Manager in the Bioenergy Technology Office working on first-of-a-kind pilot, demonstration, and commercial scale biorefineries. Before joining the federal government, Klembara worked at International Paper Company. She holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Maryland as well as an MBA and Masters of Science in Energy, both from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Director, Engagement Office, Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations
Katrina Pielli serves as the Director of the Office of Engagement in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED). Pielli has more than 20 years shaping policy, driving forward ambitious programs, and building partnerships to tackle global energy challenges and address the climate crisis. In her role as the Engagement Office Director in OCED, she ensures robust, meaningful stakeholder engagement and effective communications are at the center of the late-stage capital intensive technology demonstration projects implemented by OCED. Pielli also served in the DOE Office of Policy advancing clean energy and supply chain efforts with a focus on the nexus of manufacturing and communities. Most recently, Pielli was an international development and humanitarian energy consultant where she worked with government leaders, philanthropy, humanitarian agencies, and private sector companies to achieve their energy and climate goals. Prior to that, Pielli held several positions in the U.S. Government–at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), DOE, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency–and worked in private sector and civil society. A native of rural Idaho, Pielli holds a Master of Science in Environmental Management and Policy from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies and Policy from Cornell College.
Douglas Schultz
Chief Operating Officer, Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations
Douglas Schultz is currently the Chief Operating Officer for the Department of Energy’s new Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED), which is executing on more than $20 billion in pilot and demonstration scale clean energy technologies funded through the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Prior to joining OCED, he was the Director of Loan Guarantee Origination for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), where he was a member of the original startup team and led LPO’s lending activities. An accomplished executive and proven innovator, Schultz has been active as a consultant, developer, and lender in the energy and infrastructure sectors for more than 25 years in the U.S. and abroad.
Schultz previously served as a project development and finance executive with KMR Power, a global independent power company, a principal consultant with Nathan Associates and K&M Engineering and Consulting, both global market leaders in public/private partnerships and energy and infrastructure development and finance, and a senior investment officer with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), now the International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).
Todd Shrader
Director, Project Management, Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations
Todd Shrader is the Director, Project Management of the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED). In this role, Shrader is responsible for providing project management oversight for clean energy demonstration projects to ensure investments accelerate deployment, market adoption, and the equitable transition to a decarbonized energy system.
Prior to this role, Shrader served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary (PDAS) for the Office of Environmental Management. Prior to becoming the PDAS, he served as the Carlsbad Field Office Manager. Under his leadership, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) successfully restarted waste emplacement operations and the shipping of waste from around the DOE complex to WIPP after a three-year recovery effort. Shrader previously led the headquarters office supporting Hanford’s Office of River Protection and held a leading role in developing the path forward for accelerated tank waste treatment. Prior to that, he was with the Loan Programs Office, where he led technical reviews of over twenty energy projects that eventually received more than $13 billion in loan guarantees. Earlier, he was a project manager for the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, leading key components of the NRC licensing process. Shrader holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida and a Master of Engineering from North Carolina State University. He is a registered Professional Engineer.
Director, Technical and Engineering Support (TES), Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations
Ms. Robin Wong is the Director, Technical and Engineering Support in the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED), which is executing on more than $20 billion in pilot and demonstration scale clean energy technologies funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. In this role, Wong oversees the technical evaluations and assessments that inform decision making around the selection and ongoing execution of OCED supported projects.
Prior to joining OCED, Wong led the Systems & Policy Analysis Group in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL) Computational Engineering Division. Her team’s work focused on systems analyses related to infrastructure risk, capacity, and resiliency in civilian and national security arenas. Prior to joining LLNL, Robin held multiple federal and private sector roles, including as a Program Manager within DOE’s Loan Programs Office, where she was responsible for the technical oversight of their $10+ billion solar generation investment portfolio.
Originally from the industrial Midwest, Wong now splits her time between Washington, DC and Livermore, California. She holds a Master of Science in Applied Physics from Cornell University, a Master of Arts in Sustainable Development from SIT Graduate Institute, and a Bachelor of Arts in Physics from Lawrence University.