Bradley (Brad) Grams is focused on federal inter-agency sustainability and risk management policy development within the infrastructure space, with a career that has crossed the U.S. Departments of Energy and Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Brad currently is a Regional Environmental Protection Specialist at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration, where they are the responsible official for climate, energy, environment, and sustainability solutions for domestic and international airports in the Great Lakes Region. Prior to their current role, they were the Acting Director of Planning at the U.S. EPA’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer, leading the Agency’s strategic planning and finance, enterprise risk management, and evidence and evaluation capacity building units. They also held other senior roles at the Agency, ranging from civil enforcement to permit writing to regulatory and policy development in managerial, team leader and subject matter expert roles, including as Principal White House Liaison for Environmental Protection Budgeting and Chief of Staff for Chemical and Waste Risk Management under the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) program, where they led cross-government and inter-agency sustainability and risk management policy development for the Agency.
Prior to EPA, Brad worked at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, leading a team focused on ambient air monitoring in the Chicagoland area. Outside of their government policy work, Brad is an Adjunct Lecturer at Northwestern University, focusing on strategic communication, logic modeling, and qualitative program evaluation methods in the public sector, and leads the institution’s Affinity Leaders and Learners (ALL) LGBTQIA2+ mentoring program. They also mentor students pursuing environmental, energy, and public policy careers at: The University of Chicago’s Program on the Global Environment and Institute of Politics; Yale University’s Center for Business and the Environment, Princeton University’s P55 Program, and Harvard University’s Executive Education for Sustainability Leadership Program. They hold degrees in Chemistry and Environmental Studies, both from the University of Chicago (AB/SB, 2005), and a Master of Public Policy and Administration (MPPA) degree from Northwestern University (2017), where they focused on global voluntary climate, energy, and environmental policy development.