Governor names Iowa energy czar

August 6, 2007

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Gov. Chet Culver today named Roya Stanley as Iowa’s new director of the office of energy independence. She will help establish the state’s renewable energy policy and assist the board that will oversee the new four-year $100 million Iowa Power Fund.

Stanley will earn $120,016 annually.

“Iowa’s economy is at a turning point,” said Gov. Chet Culver. “Biofuels has been a terrific boon to our economy and without question has made us a leader in the renewable energy industry.

“We must now ask ourselves ‘what’s next?’ The Iowa Power Fund allows us to answer this by providing the tools to begin researching and developing new forms of renewable energy,” he said.

Stanley worked for more than 18 years with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the Iowa state energy office. As the energy bureau chief, she led development of a state program that provided more than $150 million in energy efficiency project investments in Iowa public facilities.

Stanley also collaborated with several Iowa organizations to develop the Iowa switchgrass initiative, laying the foundation for cellulosic fuel. And she supported the development of state standards that launched Iowa’s successful wind development program.

In her last two years with the DNR, Stanley served as the administrator for the waste management assistance division.

In 2000, Stanley accepted a position with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., where she led the laboratory’s efforts to provide research and development information to state and local officials and agricultural leaders across the country.