Steve Lommele

Steve Lommele is the Communications Director at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder. He brings over two decades of strategic communications leadership in science, technology, and policy to his role advancing CIRES' mission of understanding Earth system science.

Most recently, Lommele served as founding Communications Director for the U.S. Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, where he built an 11-person communications team from scratch for the first-ever joint federal office spanning two cabinet-level departments. He led comprehensive stakeholder engagement strategies that advanced transportation electrification nationwide, establishing partnerships with energy offices and departments of transportation across all 50 states while creating the widely-used DriveElectric.gov platform.

Prior to the Joint Office, Lommele spent nearly 13 years at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory leading communications and stakeholder engagement for clean transportation, solar energy, and residential building efficiency programs. Earlier in his career, he worked in public relations and international events before spending three years as a stakeholder engagement manager for the International Mountain Bicycling Association, traveling to 43 states to teach community organizing and advocacy.

Lommele holds a Master's degree in Environmental Policy and Management from the University of Denver and a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of Colorado Boulder.