Cabinet Secretary – Sarah Cottrell Propst

Sarah Cottrell Propst was appointed by New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham to serve as the Cabinet Secretary of the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department (EMNRD) in January 2019. EMNRD’s divisions include Energy Conservation & Management, Forestry, Mining & Minerals, Oil Conservation, and State Parks. From 2012 to 2018, she served as the Executive Director of the Interwest Energy Alliance, a non-profit trade association that represents the nation’s leading companies in the renewable energy industry, bringing them together with non-governmental organizations in the West (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming). She is the founder of Propst Consulting LLC, specializing in energy and environmental policy. She was Deputy Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department after serving as Energy and Environmental Policy Advisor to New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. She earned a Master of Public Affairs from Princeton University’s Princeton School of Public & International Affairs, with a concentration in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy. She worked as a Research Fellow for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, VA, and was a magna cum laude graduate of Davidson College with Honors in Political Science.