Dr. Dan E. Arvizu Mechanical Engineering B.S., New Mexico State University, 1973 M.S., Stanford University, 1974 Ph.D., Stanford University, 1981

Dan E. Arvizu was born in Douglas, Arizona, and earned his B.S. in mechanical engineering at New Mexico State University. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Stanford University. In 2005, he was named Director and chief executive of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), located in Golden, Colorado, the nation’s primary laboratory for energy efficiency and renewable energy research and development. Arvizu is also a Senior Vice President with Midwest Research Institute, headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, which leads the integrated team that manages NREL on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Prior to joining NREL, Arvizu was a Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of the Federal and Industrial Client Groups at CH2M HILL Companies, Ltd., headquartered in Denver, Colorado, where he oversaw technology development and acquisitions for seven business groups including energy and power, environmental services, telecommunications, and industrial design and processes businesses with annual revenues over $2.5B. Before joining CH2M in 1998, he was an executive with Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he worked for over 20 years, and directed Research Centers for Advanced Energy Technology, Material and Process Sciences, and Technology Commercialization. He started his career and spent 4 years at the AT&T Bell Telephone Labs Customer Switching Laboratory prior to transferring to Sandia.

Arvizu has served on a number of Boards and Advisory Committees including the Secretary of Energy's National Coal Council, Secretary of Defense's Army Science Board, and as an Advisor for the Division of Engineering and Physical Sciences of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering. In 2000-2002, he served on the Technical Advisory Board of the G8 International Renewable Energy Task Force and in 2002-2004 chaired a congressionally chartered Blue Ribbon Panel on the Workforce of the Future as part of the Building Engineering and Science Talent (BEST) Initiative of the Council on Competitiveness.

Presently, he serves on several university advisory boards, on the Energy RD&D Policy Project Advisory Committee of the Harvard Kennedy School, the Board of Directors of the National Hispanic National Achievement Awards Corporation (HENAAC), the American Council on Renewable Energy Advisory Board, the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Alternative Energies, the Singapore Clean Energy International Advisory Panel, and is the Vice Chair of the Colorado Renewable Energy Authority Board of Directors. He is also presently co-chairing the Task Force on Sustainable Energy for the National Science Board, and serves as the chairman of the National Science Board Audit and Oversight Committee.

Arvizu has received a number of awards and distinctions including the Albuquerque Tribune's 1986 selection for the "Rising Star in Science," named as a Distinguished Alumnus of New Mexico State University in 1988, winner of the 1996 Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Award for Executive Excellence, appointed a Technology Fellow of CH2M HILL in 1999, and has been recognized for the past five years as "One of the Most Influential Hispanics in Business and Technology" by Hispanic Engineer Magazine.

Arvizu was appointed to the National Science Board in 2004. He chairs the Audit and Oversight Committee and co-chairs the Task Force on Sustainable Energy.

August 2008