Burns McDonnell
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The University of Texas at Austin, Texas McCombs MBA, McCombs School of Business

Chase Kilty

Venture Fellow
Austin, Texas

Chase is a member of the Texas McCombs Class of 2025 concentrating in Finance and Cleantech. He is passionate about identifying solutions that enable the energy transition and is excited to be interning with Energy Transition Ventures through the McCombs Venture Fellows program. He is the VP of finance for the McCombs CleanTech group and an active member of the McCombs Ambassador Committee, McCombs Board Fellows program, and McCombs Graduate Business Adventure Team.

Prior to McCombs, Chase held various roles in the Energy & Utilities Consulting practice at 1898 & Co., Part of Burns & McDonnell in Denver and Kansas City. Chase gained expertise in electric power markets serving clients in ERCOT, SPP, MISO, the southwest, and the southeast. He primarily performed integrated resource planning analysis to deliver strategic insights to utility clients navigating the energy transition. In addition to IRPs, Chase has worked on economic transmission evaluations, All-Source RFP solicitations, asset due diligence, and renewable energy congestion studies.

Originally from Overland Park, KS, Chase graduated from the University of Arkansas with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering. In his free time, he enjoys playing basketball, running, and exploring Austin.


Craig Lawrence has served in venture capital, engineering, product, and executive roles across his 25 year career.

Craig led energy investing at leading Silicon Valley venture fund Accel Partners during the heart of the “first wave” of cleantech venture capital. During that period, Accel had one of the highest success rates in cleantech of any major Silicon Valley VC, investing in early stage cleantech companies, with exits from SunRun (NASDAQ: RUN), now the leading residential solar provider in the US, and OPower (NYSE: OPWR, acquired by NYSE:ORCL), the leading energy efficiency software and service provider to utilities.

Craig has held senior executive roles at leading companies driving the energy transition, including Vice President of Products at energy analytics software startup Treverity, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing at SolarBridge Technologies - one of the leading residential solar inverter manufacturers (acquired by NASDAQ:SPWR), and General Manager of Residential Solar at SunEdison, one of the pioneers in solar project development and financing.

Craig began his career as a design engineer, and then served as a Practice Lead at IDEO, a global design, engineering and innovation firm helping clients across multiple industries launch innovative products and services. Craig created and led IDEO’s energy practice, advising many of the leading energy tech startups on their product launches.  Craig is an inventor on patents ranging from portable fuel cells to office furniture. Craig holds a B.S. in Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University.

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Led product management for the world’s first high volume AC module, acquired by SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR)

Over $250M in sales

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Industrial Design at IDEO for Bloombox, the world’s best selling fuel cell product

Over $1B sales, IPO (NYSE: BE)

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Industrial Design at IDEO for Bloombox, the world’s best selling fuel cell product

Over $1B sales, IPO (NYSE: BE)