Interview with Chris Burmester
Chief Operating Officer at Energy Solutions
Current Position
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Q: Can you describe your current position?
A: I’m the Chief Operating Officer of Energy Solutions, a 500-person professional services company working with utilities, state agencies, and the federal government in clean energy technologies, energy efficiency, and demand-side management. What we really are is a market transformation firm. New technologies are invented all the time, but adoption is often slow due to cost, risk, and entrenched market niches. Our job is to accelerate the adoption of technologies with positive social impacts—mainly carbon reduction, energy savings, and increasingly, equity.
We work with public purpose funds—taxes, fees, or legislatively mandated funding like that from the Inflation Reduction Act—and focus on deploying technologies rather than inventing them. We identify barriers to adoption, then design programs to provide financial support, training, and incentives for things like solar and EV charging infrastructure.
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Our business model is to look at global carbon emissions, identify technologies that could offset those emissions at scale, and then find ways to accelerate adoption cost-effectively—meaning the money spent is less than the societal benefit gained. This is a multi-trillion-dollar global industry. Under the Obama administration, the social cost of carbon was set at $50/ton; under Biden, it’s $300/ton. Even at $50/ton, we’d need to offset 980 gigatons of carbon by 2050 to hold warming to 2°C—$50 trillion worth of work. At $300/ton, that’s $300 trillion.
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Climate change is both the biggest problem of the century and one of the largest economic opportunities. When I was young, there was no clean energy industry to speak of—professors told me solar would “never amount to anything.” Today, we’re running a solar program in Illinois adding 1.2 GW/year—the capacity of Los Angeles—in solar power. We partner with manufacturers, distributors, installers, and sellers to overcome their barriers, often recruiting market leaders first and following with the rest. It’s a mix of business, technology, and marketing. Thousands of companies now do this work.
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A Typical Day
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Q: What does a normal day look like for you?
A: I oversee the work of 500 people in 40 states, managing 200–300 contracts. My two main jobs are keeping the machine running smoothly—designing processes and systems to avoid crises—and addressing problems that reach me after passing through several layers. I oversee service delivery and operations, making sure staffing and standards are met. I manage sales and business strategy and track performance through real-time Tableau dashboards—actuals vs. forecasts, budgets, and operational metrics.
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I monitor team health with diversity and satisfaction surveys and talent reviews, track customer satisfaction, and oversee growth and competitiveness by looking at bids, pipeline health, win rates, profitability, and margins. We are mission-oriented: our goal is to mitigate 10% of global climate change by 2050, and we’re currently at 2%. That mission drives business strategy, seeking products and services with the largest possible impact.
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I spend time thinking about decarbonization opportunities, meeting clients, traveling every other week, presenting at conferences, and working with industry boards. I don’t “do” much directly anymore—my role is to assign, prioritize, and ensure execution.
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Career Path
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Q: Can you give an overview of your career journey?
A: I grew up in Davis, California, in the 1970s, inspired by a sustainable community called Village Homes—off-grid living, greywater systems, passive solar, and creative urban planning. I studied at UC Berkeley, earning bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees in Materials Science Engineering and Computer Science, with a minor in Energy Resource Studies.
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I worked as a programmer while in school, including as a contractor at Apple. After grad school in the late ’90s, during the dot-com boom, I ran my own web/software firm for about 10 years. In 2003, between jobs, I joined my friend’s small firm—Energy Solutions—which then had only 8–9 people.
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At Energy Solutions, I created the information systems team, pioneering online, paperless rebate processing systems. I used e-commerce, B2B integration, and early cloud computing to scale programs. I moved into product strategy, sales, and service delivery integration. I led expansion from California to the Northeast and New York. I also went back to school for an executive MBA at UCLA Anderson. After 22–23 years with the company, we’ve grown organically into the largest self-funded firm in our industry.
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Influence of Past Roles
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Q: How did your software and product management background influence your work?
A: Apple taught me data-driven design and decision-making. I standardize successful processes—moving from one-off consulting to scalable productized services. We’ve built specialized offerings in areas like food service, the wine industry, HVAC, and building decarbonization, all backed by software platforms, rulesets, and automation to cut costs. We also moved from hourly consulting to results-based pricing, charging per kWh, therm, or ton COâ‚‚ reduced. Automation frees people for higher-value work, and AI now helps with routine tasks like meeting notes, forecasting, and back-office processing.
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Industry Evolution
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Q: How has clean energy evolved since you started?
A: When I began, there was no clean energy industry. Today, renewables have gone from expensive “toys” to the cheapest energy sources. Most U.S. states have renewable portfolio or efficiency standards. Small “mom and pop” firms have been consolidated into large national or multinational players.
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Future Career Opportunities
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Q: What careers will grow most in the next 10–15 years?
A: Product management will be huge, both in tech and professional services. Engineering for market transformation—accelerating adoption of existing solutions—is a major opportunity. Policy advocacy will also grow, driving political will and legislation. Technology development for carbon-free materials and advanced renewables will be critical. And there will be big opportunities in ecosystem restoration, habitat protection, and resource management.
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Advice for Young People
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Q: What guidance would you give students?
A: Network early—student societies, internships, LinkedIn. Keep relationships; don’t burn bridges. Try different internships to see what fits. In any field, volunteer for sustainability projects. College is valuable, but the experience you get from teams, clubs, and projects often teaches more practical skills.
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Career Reflections
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Q: Anything you would change about your career?
A: I’d have worked for a large company earlier. Larger firms have training and professional development programs that are harder to get in smaller companies. That experience can later be applied in smaller or self-owned businesses.
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Goals
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Q: What are your short- and long-term goals?
A: At 60, I’m focused on succession planning for myself and our CEO. I plan to retire from full-time work but continue part-time through board roles, teaching, and policy work. For Energy Solutions, I want to see it remain employee-owned, well-managed, and impactful. Personally, my larger goal is to help catalyze global decarbonization, even beyond my company.
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Favorite Part of the Job
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Q: What do you enjoy most about your work?
A: The scale of impact—offsetting gigatons of carbon and charting real paths to mitigate climate change. It’s meaningful, urgent work, and I’m proud to be part of it.
We would like to thank Mr. Burmester for the time he spent speaking with us, and we hope you were able to learn something from the insight he provided
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From,
Cooper