James A. Croce

President and CEO;
Ex-Officio Trustee

Jim Croce is the president and CEO of the Nevada Institute for Renewable Energy Commercialization (NIREC).

After a successful 15 year career across a spectrum of engineering, managerial and executive roles in the traditional natural gas and electric utility industries, Jim has spent nearly a decade successfully launching early stage clean energy companies and supporting their commercialization efforts.

From 2003 to 2008, Jim served as the founding president and CEO of NextEnergy in Michigan, developing the company into one of the nation’s leading clean energy technology commercialization catalysts.  While at NextEnergy, Jim successfully launched a clean energy technology seed fund whose portfolio companies have gone onto to raise tens of millions of both public and private capital from leading venture capitalists, such as CMEA Capital, GE, Khosla Ventures and Ridgewood Capital.  In addition to his funding and commercialization support of early stage technology companies, Jim and his NextEnergy team successfully coached dozens of manufacturing companies to diversify into clean energy production, resulting in new orders exceeding $100 Million from leading wind and solar OEMs.  Jim also oversaw the creation of several successful technology commercialization consortia, including the U.S. DOE-funded National Biofuels Energy Laboratory and the U.S. DOD-funded Advance Mobile Microgrid Program, resulting in nearly $50 million in government research and development funding.

At NIREC since mid-2009, Jim continues to advance clean energy commercialization by overseeing seed funding and advisory support to early stage companies. In addition, Jim provides guidance to a broad array of industry and government stakeholders to position the region and the nation to lead in clean energy innovation and project deployment.

Prior to accepting his current position at NIREC, Jim was president of the Lipten Energy Services, an engineering and energy project development firm located in Michigan. Prior to his leadership roles at NextEnergy and Lipten, he held positions at DTE Energy—one  of the nation’s leading electric utilities, MCN Corporation (subsequently purchased by DTE), ANR Pipeline Company (subsequently purchased by Transcanada Pipelines), and 3M.

Jim is a member of the Board of Directors of Ultralife Corporation, a NASDAQ company providing energy storage, communications, and electronic systems to government, commercial and defense customers across the globe. He serves on the Nevada Energy Economic Strike Force, Wayne State University’s Engineering College Board of Visitors and its Electrical Engineering Industrial Advisory Council. In 2004, he was inducted into the university’s Engineering Hall of Fame and one year later he was awarded TechTown Developer of the Year. In 2007, Jim received The Grant Thornton Leader and Innovator of the Year Award.

Jim was appointed by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to three-year terms on the state’s Strategic Economic Investment and Commercialization Board in 2005 and the Renewable Fuels Commission in 2006.  He is co-founder of the Michigan Sustainable Energy Coalition, a renewable energy policy advocacy group, and has served on the board of directors of numerous nonprofit agencies.

Jim received a BS in electrical and computer engineering with honors from Wayne State University. His post graduate work was in business administration.

NIREC Board of Trustees