Kerry Duggan
My time on student government, which gave me an opportunity to help shape the direction of the school and get to know both faculty, staff and students.
Kerry's Background
Kerry C. Duggan is the founder and CEO of SustainabilD, a Detroit-based sustainability and strategy consulting firm. She previously worked as deputy director for policy in the Obama-Biden White House for then Vice President Biden and held several senior roles at the Department of Energy, mainly in Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. She also served as deputy director of the Obama-era Detroit task force, where she championed a citywide LED streetlight conversion. Duggan is currently a member the prestigious Department of Energy Secretary of Energy's Advisory Board (SEAB) as well as a Governor Gretchen Whitmer appointee to the State of Michigan’s Council on Climate Solutions. In 2020, she was named a member of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force, serving as one of Biden’s five delegates on the climate change policy committee. She previously worked at the League of Conservation Voters.
After her time in federal service, Duggan co-founded the Smart Cities Lab, was a partner with the Honorable Thomas J. Ridge’s firm and has served on several boards including at the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise and the Global Council for Science and the Environment. In 2018, Duggan was named to the prestigious “40 Under 40” list by Crain’s Detroit Business, and she is currently a Board Director of Perma-Fix Environmental Services, Inc. (NASDAQ: PESI), a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists and a Member of the International Women’s Forum.
She sits on the corporate advisory boards of RockCreek Global Investment, Aclima, Inc., Walker-Miller Energy Services, Arctaris Impact Investors Opportunity Zone Fund, and HeatX. Duggan earned a Bachelor’s in environmental studies from the University of Vermont and a Master’s in natural resource policy and behavior from the University of Michigan.
Find your north star and focus on it. Your passion will keep you afloat on the long days and nights ahead, and you never know what doors will open. For what it’s worth, my recipe for “success” has been to take risks, work hard, fail fast, learn from mistakes, and above all: practice gratitude. One more thing: Acquire and keep mentors to keep you grounded.