Former Secretaries of Commerce and Energy Join UT Advisory Leadership

Former cabinet members to join UT Austin Kay Bailey Hutchison Energy Center Executive Council.

The Kay Bailey Hutchison Energy Center at The University of Texas at Austin announced that former Secretary of Commerce Don Evans and former Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette will join its executive council.

Evans was appointed as the 34th U.S. secretary of commerce in 2001 by President George W. Bush and served until 2005. Prior to that, he was the chairman of Energy Future Holdings Company, formerly TXU Energy, and was the CEO of Tom Brown Inc., a large independent energy company. Evans serves as chairman of the Permian Strategic Partnership and is a senior adviser at Energy Capital Partners. He attended The University of Texas at Austin, receiving a B.S. in mechanical engineering in 1969 and an MBA in 1973. He received the KBH Energy Center’s lifetime achievement award in September 2023 and will serve as an honorary member of the executive council.

Brouillette was the 15th U.S. secretary of energy. He recently participated in the KBH Energy Center’s eighth annual symposium as a panelist discussing the near-term outlook for traditional energy development and efforts to decarbonize existing energy sources. He served as the president of Sempra Infrastructure and was recently selected as the Edison Electric Institute’s president and chief executive officer.

The KBH Energy Center was created by The University of Texas as a joint effort between the McCombs School of Business and the UT School of Law. It was named for the former senator and ambassador in 2014. The Cockrell School of Engineering joined the KBH Energy Center in September 2023, reinforcing the center’s technical expertise and supporting the expansion of existing programs for engineering students and industry leaders.