We'd听like to introduce a new member of our faculty, Josh Radoff,听who has taken over as MENV's听Renewable and Sustainable Energy听specialization lead听for the remainder of this semester. Josh is听highly experienced听in the energy field听and our RSE students are excited to learn all that they can from him in the next few months. In this faculty spotlight article, Josh tells us about听his background, career, and what he's looking forward to during his time with MENV.听
Tell us a little bit about your background.
I grew up outside of New Haven, Connecticut,听and I have always identified as a New Englander. Growing up, soccer was my life. I captained my high school team and played at Colby College (including winning the ECAC听championship听in 鈥�93). After college, my career meandered a bit. I taught high school physics and earth science at a school in Richmond, Virginia听for two years, then went to Columbia to get my Electrical Engineering degree. After that, I听went to Stockholm to get a degree in Sustainable Energy Engineering. I then moved to DC and worked in energy and climate policy for a few years until I听moved back to New York. There, I got into the early green building movement and co-founded an advocacy group called GreenHomeNYC (it鈥檚 still out there) to spread the word.
In 2005, I moved to Colorado听and started YR&G--a consulting听firm that specialized听in sustainability consulting,听education and analysis--in 2006 with one other partner. That听was the first time that I really started loving my job. Working on听development projects with听architects on what their buildings, campuses or neighborhoods could be was extremely satisfying. We grew the company to 25 people, and I found running a business to be pretty fun too. I also got to do projects in some pretty听amazing places, including听Korea, Hawaii, China, and Dubai.
Eventually, I got tired of the small business thing. I听found us an acquisition partner in WSP--a global听sustainable engineering and design firm--in 2017, and here I am.
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How did you end up at MENV?
I have always loved teaching. In the early days of the business, we had a contract to teach weekly LEED certification classes and then got another gig to teach weeklong seminars around the country. I then met some people at 乐播传媒 Denver听and talked to them about taking over a class there, and I eventually taught two classes in the Civil Engineering department on Sustainable Development and Clean Energy. I did that until 2016 and then, after a break, started talking to people at CU Boulder and MENV. First, Ben Webster, then Rudy Kahsar, and I鈥檝e known William Shutkin forever for some reason, and it started to click. Now I鈥檓 in my second year here. I also played on a soccer team with Max Boykoff,听head of CU Boulder's ENVS department,听for five years or so but I actually never put two听and two听together until a few weeks ago!
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What are you looking forward to in your new role as the interim RSE lead?
Getting to know the students听and helping them听find their interests, and then fitting those interests into a career path. I'm also looking forward to being able to communicate my enthusiasm for all the cool things going on in the energy space that we only get to scratch the surface on in class. I wish it weren鈥檛 all remote, but I bet everyone else does too.
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What most excites you about the energy space?
This changes all the time, but I think it鈥檚 the idea that you can envision a pathway to zero carbon and actually go and make it happen. All of the pieces are there and it鈥檚 for our generation to put those pieces together. I guess right now my favorite topic is thinking of buildings, homes, and districts as enablers to a 100% renewable future. And while I don鈥檛 get to work on this, I think the ability for the developing world to leapfrog centralized fossil energy infrastructure towards distributed renewable energy microgrids is pretty cool.
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What is something people may not know about you?
I love to write. In college, I had a satire/movie review column as well as a radio show.听I later took a journalism course in New York听and spent some time thinking I鈥檇 do that instead of energy consulting. I wrote a cover article for Solar Today (called NYPV Blue) and a few others of note back in the early 鈥�00s. I also had a friend in New York听who was the editor at Daily Candy, and they听let me write a few articles on everything from Lego shows to chocolate exhibitions. Also, around that same time听I ran the New York City听Marathon--the first half of which was fast! The second half...slower.