Don Macdonald - Senior Advisor for Strategic Projects
Donald Macdonald has spent the past 24 years working for the Department of Energy in a variety of roles. Prior to his service with the DOE he spent three years on the staff of a U.S. Senator and has worked in the private sector.
He is serving the Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) as a Senior Advisor for Strategic Projects and oversees implentation of DOE's Technology Commercialization Fund. Prior to joining OTT he responsible for overseeing activities that support leveraging DOE capabilities on behalf of other government agencies, state and local governments and private sector companies and ensuring that technologies developed by the government can be readily commercialized. In addition he has oversight of the non-nuclear energy research programs conducted at the Idaho National Laboratory.
From 2009-2011 Mr. Macdonald served as the inaugural Program Manager for the Smart Grid Investment Grant program, an $8 billion cost shared effort to upgrade electric utility infrastructure across the United States utilizing Smart Grid technologies. From 2000-2009 Mr. Macdonald was responsible for the oversight of research, development and deployment activities conducted at the Idaho National Laboratory on behalf of national security clients. Under his strategic leadership, these programs grew from $30 million to over $300 million.
From 1996-1997 Mr. Macdonald served as a Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of Energy.
Mr. Macdonald has also served as the Chief of Staff for the Manager of the Idaho Operations Office, Program Manager for the Buried Waste Program, Deputy Program Manager for the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project for Rust Geotech.
In his distant past, Mr. Macdonald was a molybdenum and silver miner who found much joy in playing with explosives on a routine basis.
Mr. Macdonald has a Bachelor’s degree in History and Political Science from Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO and has graduate level course work in Public Administration from the University of Colorado and in Environmental Science from the University of Idaho.