Dan Reicher '78 Named Senior Fellow to Lead Collaboration on Northeastern Rivers and Dams

The Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society at Dartmouth is pleased to announce that Dan Reicher '78 has been named the Institute's second Senior Fellow. Reicher, Senior Scholar at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment (part of Stanford's Doerr School of Sustainability), will lead the Uncommon Dialogue (UD) on Northeastern Rivers and Dams, a new collaboration between Dartmouth and Stanford. 

"Dan's long and diverse career in energy and sustainability, his deep connections to both Stanford and Dartmouth, and his experience facilitating complex negotiations with multiple stakeholders make him the perfect choice to lead this new Uncommon Dialogue," said Geoff Parker, Irving Institute Interim Faculty Director. 

An entrepreneur, investor, policymaker, lawyer and educator focused on clean energy and climate change, Reicher has indeed had a diverse career. After graduating from Dartmouth as a biology major, he went on to earn a JD from Stanford University. In the years that followed, he has served three U.S. presidents, testified before the U.S. Congress more than 50 times, led the launch of Google's path-breaking climate and clean energy work, oversaw a $1.2 billion annual clean energy R&D budget as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Energy, and co-founded one of the nation's first investment firms focused exclusively on clean energy  project finance. His federal roles include, among others: U.S. Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; Department of Energy (DOE) Chief of Staff; DOE Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for Policy and International; a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Energy and Environmental Systems; a member of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board; a member of two presidential transition teams; and a staff member of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island (chaired by then Dartmouth president John Kemeny). Reicher has also served as a member of the Irving Institute Advisory Board since 2018. 

After serving as Google's Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, Reicher returned to Stanford in 2011 as founding executive director of Stanford's Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy & Finance, a joint center of the Stanford law and business schools, and held that position until 2018. Currently he is a Senior Scholar at the Stanford University Woods Institute for Environment, part of the university's new Doerr School of Sustainability, where he has led a number of Uncommon Dialogues on critically important and contentious  issues in the deployment of clean energy to fight climate change, including hydropower and river conservation (NY Times), large-scale solar development and land conservation (NY Times),  and transmission siting and cost allocation. 

Reicher said, "An Uncommon Dialogue brings adverse parties together on tough sustainability issues to find common ground and advance critical solutions. The  more than 21,000 dams in the Northeastern U.S. (New England and New York) need help via what we call the '3Rs': rehabilitate some for safety; retrofit some for power; and remove some for conservation and safety. I am excited to join Dartmouth as an Irving Institute Senior Fellow to launch and lead this dialogue that will explore how to advance the 3Rs for the tens of thousands of New England and New York dams and their related rivers. The national Uncommon Dialogue that undergirds this new initiative raised $2.3 billion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for 3Rs efforts across the country. We think this new dialogue can help Northeastern states accelerate critical 3Rs work at the region's dams, increase available funds, and set an example for the rest of the nation." 

The Institute team is thrilled to have him aboard. Welcome, Dan!