Bill Stetson

Bill Stetson — Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council Global Energy Center

Bill Stetson is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center. He is a film producer, as well as an environmental and political adviser. He has produced several documentaries, including the PBS AIDS feature, “A Closer Walk” (2006). In 1996, he established the Vermont Film Commission and served as its president for a decade. For the past five years, Bill has served as the consulting director of external affairs for the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital. He advised Vermont’s Governor Peter Shumlin (D) on issues of energy and environment, as he had the two previous governors—Howard Dean (D) and Jim Douglas (R). He also advised several other political campaigns, and was named an environmental surrogate for the Obama for America Campaign (2008). As CEO of Fairhill Oil & Gas Corporation, Bill transformed the company from a traditional oil and gas firm to a profitable natural gas business. He co-founded River Watch Network, merging it with River Network (Boulder, CO), directed the Vermont and New Hampshire operations of the Connecticut River Watershed Council, and served as a supervisor of the Ottauquechee Natural Resources Conservation District (US Department of Agriculture). Bill has served on several media, foundation, and environmental boards. Additionally, he is a trustee and governor of the Smith Richardson Foundation (NC, CT), and in 2011 was appointed by The White House as a member of the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts (PACA). Bill earned his bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard University where he was named a fellow at the Institute of Politics and attended the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where he studied energy and natural resources policy. Bill also spent time at the Austro-American Institute in Vienna, Austria, where he focused on European government studies.