December 7, 2022 – Portland, Ore. – The Board of Directors of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) announced today that it has selected Becca Yates as the alliance’s new Executive Director.

Becca’s proven experience, leadership and passion for energy efficiency transformation made her the ideal selection to successfully lead NEEA.

- Cory Scott

Vice President of Customer and Community Solutions, Pacific Power

Yates has served multiple roles in NEEA’s program and communications teams, with increasing responsibility during her fifteen-year tenure at NEEA. Most recently, she served on the executive leadership team overseeing NEEA’s corporate strategy, stakeholder relations, communications, and program marketing teams. In this role, she has worked with the Board to develop a draft 2025-2029 strategic plan and has led numerous organizational development initiatives for the organization. Yates steps into her role as Executive Director as the alliance’s Board of Directors develops its 2025-2029 business plan. These plans will outline NEEA’s comprehensive five-year strategy to ensure that NEEA’s Market Transformation work in energy efficiency will support the region in addressing evolving energy, capacity and resource adequacy priorities.

The Northwest and this alliance have an incredible history of collaborating and innovating in ways that create meaningful and lasting impact in the market. Energy efficiency, market transformation and collaboration have never been as important as they are now as the industry addresses the opportunities and challenges in front of it.

- Becca Yates

NEEA Executive Director

Yates began her career working in various communications and marketing positions for a global security think tank, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Foreign Policy Magazine in Washington, DC. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Studies and Political Science from Pepperdine University and an MBA from the University of Oregon - Charles H. Lundquist College of Business.

Yates succeeds Executive Director Susan E. Stratton, who retires after leading the organization for the past eleven years. Stratton led the alliance through two five-year funding cycles to secure close to $400 million in funding for regional market transformation programs. She is an innovator and collaborative leader who steered the introduction of natural gas market transformation programs to NEEA in 2015. In addition, Stratton helped gain support to launch the End Use Load Research project, a regional energy use study that will guide the region’s planners and benefit Northwest consumers for years to come. Through her leadership, NEEA established Market Transformation as a nationwide practice for energy efficiency.

I’m honored to have had the privilege of leading this incredible organization over these past 11 years and seeing the innovation that this alliance of utilities and energy efficiency organizations continue to advance. I could not be more excited for this alliance having Becca taking the helm. She is a strategist, an innovator and a skilled collaborator who I know will work with this region to chart a successful course for NEEA’s next 25 years.

- Susan E. Stratton

Former NEEA Executive Director

###

The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) is an alliance of more than 140 utilities and energy efficiency organizations working on behalf of more than 13 million energy consumers. NEEA is dedicated to accelerating both electric and gas energy efficiency, leveraging its regional partnerships to advance the adoption of energy-efficient products, services and practices.

Since 1997, NEEA and its partners have saved energy equivalent to powering more than 640,000 homes each year. As the second-largest resource in the Northwest, energy efficiency can help offset most of the region’s new demand for energy, saving money and keeping the Northwest a healthy and vibrant place to live. To learn more about NEEA’s 25-year history of successful market transformation, visit https://neea.org/about-neea/25-years or watch the video.

Media Contact:
Carolyn VanWinkle, NEEA