Groundswell Presents: From Policy Into Practice: Building Community Power

Bracken leads us through a discussion of how he built Urban Ingenuity to demonstrate high-level policy ideas through leading-edge projects. Their goals are to support housing affordability, wealth creation, and community resilience through environmentally sustainable infrastructure investments – including the community solar project at Rhode Island Row. 

As CEO and founder of Urban Ingenuity, Bracken oversees one of the nation’s leading commercial PACE financing programs and manages efforts to finance and develop solar energy and microgrid projects with a special focus on reaching underserved communities.

Bracken has a long track record of deploying new solutions for energy efficiency, renewables, and distributed energy within the built environment. Before launching Urban Ingenuity, he was a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress, where he helped launch their energy practice and shaped clean energy portions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as well as establishing the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Challenge. Together with Washington State Governor Jay Inslee, Bracken is co-author of the book, “Apollo’s Fire: Igniting America’s Clean Energy Economy”, and he has served as a long-time advisor to former President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation on job creation, energy innovation, and resilient urban development. Early in his career, he was founding Executive Director of the Apollo Alliance, a pioneering labor and environmental partnership to advance good jobs and energy independence. Bracken holds a Master’s degree in public policy and urban planning from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.