Richard G. Kidd
Richard G. Kidd IV is a member of the Center for Climate and Security’s Advisory Board. He joins the board following over 31 years of combined Federal service, including Senior Executive Service assignments in three federal agencies and the White House. Additionally, he has been an international civil servant with over five years of work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme.
Richard’s most recent position was serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment and Energy Security. In this role, he provided strategic direction and programmatic oversight to the Department’s environmental stewardship and energy resilience efforts. Included in this portfolio are major efforts related to climate change resilience, operational energy supportability, and sustainability. He led the drafting teams that produced the Department of Defense’s Climate Adapation Plan and the Department’s Green House Gas Mitigation Plan. He was recently responsible for planning and prioritization for over $640M in military construction funds for installation energy resilience and $440M in research and development funds used to advance energy and environmental technologies.
Over his career, Richard has established himself as an expert in public-sector sustainability practices. In 2007, he took on the role as the Director of the Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), tasked with accelerating the uptake and deployment of clean energy technologies across Federal Agencies. He served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Energy and Sustainability from 2010 through 2016 where he was instrumental in developing large public-private partnerships focused on energy efficiency and deployment of renewable energy. He led the Army’s sustainability and energy resilience efforts. From the Army, he moved to the Executive Office of the President with the mission of creating the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (FPISC), a new, small agency tasked with reducing the permitting time for major infrastructure projects. Following this tour in the White House, he again returned to the Army as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Strategic Integration.
Richard’s international security work includes five years as an international civil servant with the United Nation’s World Food Programme (UNWFP) and the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). His emergency relief work took him into active combat zones in Asia, Europe, and Africa. His last UN position was serving as the Operations Officer for the UN Mine Action Program in Afghanistan. Following his UN service, Richard took a position in the State Department’s Bureau of Political Military Affairs.
