Daniel Gardner - Mayor of City of Oberlin

Name: In Office: Address: Telephone: Website:

Daniel Gardner 2004 - Present City of Oberlin Oberlin, OH 44074 440-213-6025 CityofOberlin.com

With Oberlin College’s internationally prominent Environmental Studies program as a backdrop, Mayor Gardner believes that modeling collaboration between the private, public and education sectors is Oberlin’s contribution to solving the global climate crisis. 

Prior to assuming office, he was the founding Chairman of a community non-profit that supported the Youth Energy Squad (YES!), a project which paired high school and college students in energy efficiency upgrades in low-income households and introduced energy efficiency into the public schools’ curriculum.  One of the program’s student leaders now operates a rapidly growing bio-fuels conversion, generation and fueling business in Oberlin.  Gardner also mentored three college students who would become developers of a high performance $17 million mixed-use, mixed income redevelopment project in Oberlin’s downtown.

Snapshot of Cool Achievements

• 2007:  Oberlin and Oberlin College receive the Clean Energy Community of the Year award from Green Energy Ohio (GEO) at the National SOLAR 2007 Conference
• 2007: City Council creates permanent "Sustainable Energy Fund: out of proceeds on the sale of green energy to Oberlin College.
• 2007: Mayor Gardner introduces legislation mandating LEED certification for municipal building and renovation projects, requiring conversion of city fleet to E-85 and bio-diesel engines, and revising building code to adopt DOE recommendations for climate zone insulation R-values.
• 2006: City Council provides funding for business start-up Full Circle Fuels to modify fuel island and tank to pump bio-diesel blends.
• 2005: City Council provides funding for Wind Energy Feasibility Study
• 2005: City Council approves TIF agreement with Sustainable Community Associates, LLC, to foster a $17M redevelopment project in Oberlin’s Central Business District.  The project was selected to participate in the US Green Building Council’s new LEED-neighborhood development pilot program.

A Cool Quote

"Energy conservation is a social justice issue not only for future generations but in the here and now.  Why should our working poor spend a grossly disproportionate amount of their income on energy costs? Why should we send our young men and women to distant lands to protect oil supplies when we can engage them in creating the new domestic energy economy?  We are the leaders we’ve been looking for."