Edward G. Rendell, Pennsylvania's 45th Governor, began a second term of office on January 16, 2007, following a landslide re-election victory. As Governor, Rendell serves as chief executive of the nation's 6th-most-populous state and oversees a $28.3 billion budget.

Governor Rendell's unprecedented strategic investments have energized Pennsylvania's economy, revitalized communities, improved education, protected the environment and expanded access to health care to all children and affordable prescription drugs for older adults. He championed and signed into law Pennsylvania's first comprehensive measure to substantially reform the local tax system by providing urgently needed property tax relief to homeowners. In 2008-09 taxpayers will save nearly $800 million in the first year of statewide property tax relief from gaming revenues.

Governor Rendell is building on his efforts to make government more responsible to the public, and more responsive to the public's needs. He has annually cut wasteful spending and improved efficiency to save more than $1 billion and is pursuing a legislative agenda that includes commonsense political reforms to put progress ahead of partisanship.

Under Governor Rendell's leadership, Pennsylvania's economy rebounded sharply. Governor Rendell's economic stimulus plan is investing more than $2.8 billion to create new jobs and revitalize communities. Pennsylvania's unemployment rate continues to be better than, or on par with, the national average. To ensure that all Pennsylvanians share in the benefits of our growing economy, the Governor successfully championed the first minimum wage increase in nearly a decade.

Under Governor Rendell, student achievement is on the rise at every grade level and in every subject. Pennsylvania's public schools now have the resources to invest in proven education initiatives like pre-kindergarten, full-day kindergarten and tutoring. Pennsylvania has gone from one of the nine states in the country that failed to fund pre-kindergarten to a national leader in early childhood investment, and for the first time ever more than half of Pennsylvania kindergartners are in full-day programs.

Governor Rendell is also making Pennsylvania a leader in pursuing energy independence – creating jobs in the emerging alternative energy economy while developing effective strategies to reduce dependence on foreign oil and save families money.

Governor Rendell championed a dramatic increase in the number of older Pennsylvanians who receive affordable prescription drugs through Pennsylvania's PACE and PACENET programs. He also saved older adults thousands of dollars a year that they would have been forced to pay under the federal Medicare Part D prescription drug plan.

In addition, Governor Rendell won passage of the landmark Growing Greener 2 environmental investment package. The $625 million initiative is cleaning up rivers and streams, improving parks, returning abandoned industrial sites to productive use, protecting open space and preserving farmland.

Governor Rendell has accomplished all of this while being a careful steward of the commonwealth's finances. When he became Governor, the commonwealth faced a projected budget deficit of $2.4 billion. As one of his first acts, Governor Rendell cut government spending to close that deficit and implemented programs and policies to apply business principles of productivity and cost-savings to the operation of state government.

From 1992 through 1999, Governor Rendell served as the 121st Mayor of the City of Philadelphia. Among his many accomplishments as Mayor, Rendell eliminated a $250 million deficit; balanced the city's budget and generated five consecutive budget surpluses; reduced business and wage taxes for four consecutive years; implemented new revenue-generating initiatives, and dramatically improved services to the City's neighborhoods. The New York Times called the Philadelphia renaissance under Rendell "the most stunning turnaround in recent urban history." Before serving as Mayor, Rendell was elected district attorney of the City of Philadelphia for two terms from 1978 through 1985.

The Governor, who served as general chair of the Democratic National Committee during the 2000 Presidential election, has always been active in the community through a variety of memberships on boards, and also teaches government and politics courses at the University of Pennsylvania. An Army veteran, the Governor is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (B.A. 1965) and Villanova Law School (J.D. 1968). He was born on January 5, 1944.

The Governor and his wife, First Lady Marjorie O. Rendell, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, have a son, Jesse. They celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary on July 10, 2008.

Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, Google, Inc.

Dan W. Reicher has over 20 years of experience in business, government and non-governmental organizations focused on energy and environmental technology, policy, finance and law. He joined Google in 2007 where he serves as Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives for the company’s venture called Google.org which has been capitalized with $2 billion of Google stock to make investments and advance policy in the areas of climate change and energy, global development, and global health. Prior to his recent position at Google, Mr. Reicher served as President and Co-Founder of New Energy Capital Corp., a New England-based company that develops, invests in, owns and operates renewable energy and distributed generation
projects. He also served as Executive Vice President of Northern Power Systems, one of the nation’s oldest renewable energy companies.

Mr. Reicher also is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Energy and Environmental Systems, a member of General Electric’s Ecomagination Advisory Board, co-chairman of the board of the American Council on Renewable Energy, and a member of the board of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. He also served as an adjunct professor at the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Vermont Law School.

From 1997-2001, Mr. Reicher was Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). As Assistant Secretary, he directed annually more than $1 billion in investments in energy research, development and deployment related to renewable energy, distributed generation and energy efficiency. Prior to that position, Mr. Reicher was DOE Chief of Staff (1996-97), Assistant Secretary of Energy for Policy (Acting) (1995-1996), and Deputy Chief of Staff and Counselor to the Secretary (1993-1995). He was also a member of the U.S. Delegation to the Climate Change Negotiations, Co-Chair of the U.S. Biomass Research and Development Board, and a member of the board of the government-industry Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles. After leaving the Clinton Administration in 2001 he was a consultant to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a Visiting Fellow at the World Resources Institute.

Prior to his roles at the Department of Energy and in the business community, Mr. Reicher was a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council where he focused on the federal government’s energy and nuclear programs as well as environmental law and policy issues in the former Soviet Union. He was also previously Assistant Attorney General for Environmental Protection in Massachusetts, a law clerk to a federal district court judge in Boston, a legal assistant in the Hazardous Waste Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, and a staff member of President Carter’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island.

Mr. Reicher holds a B.A. in Biology from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. He also studied at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Mr. Reicher was a member of the first group on record to kayak the Yangtze River in China and a National Geographic sponsored expedition that was the first to navigate the entire 1888 mile Rio Grande.