Bio

Chad is currently the Senior Director, Head of Sustainability at Aspiration where he leads the corporate and product sustainability initiatives of the firm. On the corporate sustainability side, this includes all corporate GHG accounting, target setting, carbon credit procurement, reporting, and risk assessments. On the Product side, this includes leading Aspiration’s product climate strategy, innovation, and development across their debit card and investment products.

Prior to his role as Head of Sustainability, Chad started a new business line of B2B2C digital carbon products. Chad owned the P&L, strategy, and overall success of this new business line.

Before Aspiration, Chad was the CEO & Co-founder of Carbon Insights which was acquired by Aspiration and announced in January 2022 (Press Release). Carbon Insights was a public benefit corporation based in Denver, CO providing cloud-based sustainability-as-a-service offerings to help empower individuals and small businesses to understand, reduce, and offset their environmental impact.

Previously, Chad was a Team Lead at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). in their Center for Integrated Mobility Sciences where his research focus was at the intersection of economics and renewable transportation systems. Chad’s work at NREL supported multiple public agencies including the U.S. DOE Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office, Vehicle Technologies Office, Solar Technologies Office, Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy Strategic Analysis Office, and the California Energy Commission. Highlights of Chad’s work can be found in the professional highlights page, all his publications can be found here, and a list of his awards can be found here.

Chad was also an EDF Climate Corps fellow at Bird, where he developed a life-cycle assessment modeling platform to evaluate the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants of the Bird scooters relative to other modes of transport. His work helped guide Bird to incorporating sustainability data into their product development and operations (project summary).

Before NREL, Chad had various roles in R&D, Operations, and Project Management and Implementation at ExxonMobil. He used data analytics to drive process optimization and implemented lean manufacturing initiatives to increase operational productivity and sustainability. He identified and led initiatives at refineries to improve energy efficiency of multiple process units and reduce energy consumption by ~$1.3M/year.

Chad also worked at BP and Novartis through MIT’s Master’s in Chemical Engineering Practice program and worked at General Motors in their Fuel Cell Research Division where he researched oxygen reduction reaction kinetics in hydrogen fuel cells.

Chad received his MBA from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2019, his Masters in Chemical Engineering Practice from MIT, and B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester. Chad is also an active mentor as a University of Rochester Real Reader and part of the MIT Alumni Association, in addition to serving on the University of Rochester’s chemical engineering department Advisory Board.