Chattanoogan S. David Freemen earned the bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Georgia Tech and the LLB from UT. He served in various high-level government positions, including energy advisor to President Jimmy Carter. He previously had been an energy consultant to the US Senate Commerce Committee, head of the energy policy staff in the White House Office of Science and Technology (the first person in the federal government with energy-related responsibility, when appointed in 1967 by Lyndon Johnson), and executive assistant to the chairman of the Federal Power Commission.
He served on the TVA Board of Directors from 1977 to 1984 and as chairman from 1978 to 1981. At TVA he launched a $1 billion air-pollution-mitigation effort and established an energy efficiency program that reached more than one million homes. From 1986 to 1990, he was general manager of the Lower Colorado River Authority in Austin, Texas. He served as general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and headed California’s Independent System Operator and the California Power Exchange (ISO/PX) Trusts. He is the author of two books: Winning Our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How (2007) and Energy: The New Era (1974).