John L. Garrison is the senior energy and climate change advisor with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the Latin America and Caribbean Bureau’s Office of Regional Sustainable Development (LAC/RSD). Garrison backstops mission clean energy, climate change programs, and climate finance issues for the Bureau.
Garrison started his career in LAC/RSD working on trade and environment issues. From 2008 to 2009, he ran the regional USAID Central America Environment program out of El Salvador. From 2010 to 2012, he worked in the USAID Europe and Eurasia Bureau on energy and climate issues. He then joined the Africa Bureau where he helped to design and launch President Obama’s Power Africa Initiative. From 2015 to 2021, Garrison worked in the Power Africa Coordinator’s Office in Pretoria, South Africa, where he helped design, procure and eventually manage Power Africa’s US$900 million IDIQ contract. He also worked with the Nigeria Power Sector Program and East Africa Energy Program IDIQ task orders, among multiple other assistance programs.
Prior to joining the Agency, Garrison served as the international policy director at the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) in Washington, DC and as an associate attorney with the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery in Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked in the firm’s corporate, energy and international law practice groups. A former Fulbright scholar in Mexico with the Center for Mexican Environmental Law (CEMDA), Garrison received his law degree from Pace University School of Law and his bachelor of arts in history with minors in environmental studies and Spanish from the University of Vermont.
Garrison was an event speaker at the Dialogue.