Richard W. Caperton is the Director of Clean Energy Investment at American Progress. In this role, he leads the Energy Opportunity team’s work on renewable energy finance, electricity markets, and clean energy infrastructure. His work focuses on designing tools that will encourage private investment in clean energy, such as tax policies and government credit programs. He also works on electric utility issues, with a particular interest in making sure that government regulation of electricity markets enables growth of the clean energy economy. Caperton has testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives and is regularly quoted in the press on these issues. Prior to joining American Progress, Caperton was a policy fellow at the Alliance for Climate Protection, where he performed economic impact analyses of proposed climate legislation. He previously worked in government relations at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. While with NRECA, he helped develop new grassroots advocacy programs that increased participation in the organization’s political action committee by 20 percent. Caperton is a native of rural America, growing up in Virginia and Missouri. He received his M.B.A. from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and a B.A. in politics from Pomona College.