Kateri Callahan
Kateri Callahan has been the president of the Alliance to Save Energy since election to the post by the Board of Directors in January 2004. She serves as the principal spokesperson for the Alliance in promoting energy efficiency worldwide as our most abundant, cost-effective and cleanest energy resource.
Under Kateri’s leadership, the Alliance was influential in the passage of both the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, the latter of which is the most significant energy efficiency legislation to be enacted by the Congress in decades. Kateri participated directly in advocacy of both bills, having testified on numerous occasions before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the Senate Finance Committee and the House Science Committee. She also participates regularly in organizational and strategy meetings organized and led by congressional leadership and key members of Congress.
Kateri also has overseen the Alliance’s success in turning around the systemic erosion in federal funding for Department of Energy efficiency programs that began in the early years of the decade. Fiscal years 2007 and 2008 witnessed the first modest increases in funding for these programs since at least 2002.
As chief spokesperson for the Alliance, Kateri has made numerous appearances and speeches. She has spoken before the United Nations, U.S. Energy Association, European Parliament, National Association of State Energy Officials, International Energy Agency and the Organization of American States, among many others. She also has been interviewed by top media including MSNBC, CNBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Associated Press, National Public Radio and a host of local newspapers and radio and TV stations.
Kateri leads a staff of more than 50 and oversees a budget of about $12 million annually that supports energy efficiency projects in the U.S. and around the world. Kateri oversees the Alliance Board of Directors, which includes members of Congress from both parties as honorary board chair and vice-chairs, as well as top executives from companies and utilities. Kateri serves as the co-chair of The Keystone Center Energy Board and on the boards of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, the Building Performance Institute and The Keystone Center. She also serves on an advisory council to Better Homes and Gardens magazine and to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In June 2009, Kateri was among the 23 inaugural inductees to the new Energy Efficiency Hall of Fame established by Johnson Controls and the United States Energy Association.
Prior to joining the Alliance, Kateri served for 11 years as the executive director of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, a Washington, D.C.-based international nonprofit coalition of industry, government, academic, and nonprofit organizations that promotes the development and use of battery, hybrid and fuel cell transportation technologies. She has also worked for the Washington, D.C., law firm of Van Ness Feldman, where she filled various management and advocacy roles for a number of the firm’s important coalition clients, and for former Sen. Walter “Dee” Huddleston. Kateri graduated from the University of Louisville.
