Rob Morton, co-founder of Cascade Energy in 1993, was visionary in seeing the potential to help both customers and the planet by focusing on energy efficiency in industrial settings.
Charlotte, North Carolina – In recognition of his significant contributions to the industrial energy efficiency industry over the last 30 years, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) awarded Cascade co-founder Rob Morton its Champion of Energy Efficiency in Industry – Lifetime Achievement Award during the 2025 Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Industry conference this week.
Rob was one of three co-founders of Cascade Energy in 1993 and was presented this award during an awards ceremony luncheon on Thursday, July 17th at the bi-annual ACEEE conference, which took place in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“With the heart of a mentor, the mind of an engineer, and the vision of a true innovator, Rob Morton has not only moved industry to a higher performing, more sustainable, and less wasteful state, but he did this while building a people-centric company positioned to grow its impact on industry for years to come,” said Dan Brown, CEO of Cascade.
Rob retired from Cascade at the end of 2024 after guiding Cascade for over 30 years, growing the company into a leading national provider of industrial energy efficiency and decarbonization services. He helped create the Cascade of today, which provides training, demand-side management (DSM) program design and implementation, project energy engineering services, strategic energy management (SEM) services and software, and corporate energy management.
Rob was instrumental in creating and shaping Cascade’s expertise, services, and software, which have resulted in billions of kWh of energy savings and reduced greenhouse gas emissions over the past 30-plus years. Rob helped Cascade establish its dual goals of delivering 8 billion kWh of energy savings by 2028 and 1.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCDE) in emissions reduction by 2024. To date, we have successfully achieved 64% of our energy savings goal and 60% of our carbon goal.
Equally significant, from three employees in 1993 to over 270 today, Rob has served as an expert, thoughtful, kind, and motivating mentor to hundreds of people in the energy efficiency and decarbonization space. He was also a key player in Cascade becoming 100% employee-owned in 2021, cementing Cascade’s commitment to ensuring all employees who contribute to our company experience the benefits of our collective growth.
Rob and Cascade are acutely aware that the climate crisis disproportionately harms low-income communities and communities of color. Through our experience delivering industrial-sector DSM programs and training, we recognize industrial facilities are disproportionately located in underserved communities. In our DSM program design, we focus participant recruitment in underserved communities, creating both workforce development and energy and environmental benefits. Workforce development training provides education to employees located in underserved communities, increasing their knowledge and improving their ability to advance in their careers and contribute to local growth and development. Training workers to identify, implement, and optimize energy efficiency and decarbonization projects benefits the communities they live in by reducing stress on electric grids, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and improving air quality.
Further making a difference in underserved communities, Rob is Treasurer of the Renewable Energy Scholarship Foundation (RESF), a 501(c)(3) that provides academic scholarships to students committed to renewable energy. Rob was the inspiration behind Cascade Energy sponsoring an annual scholarship with RESF. Cascade’s scholarship is dedicated to first-generation college students, students with disabilities as defined by the ADA, and/or students from an underrepresented or historically marginalized group who are making a difference in the world of energy efficiency. In 2025, we’re proud to have awarded this scholarship to Kwame Donkor, a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Washington. His research investigates the intersection of extreme weather events, grid infrastructure, and climate vulnerabilities, with a focus on quantifying power grid reliability across diverse neighborhoods in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Rob’s strategies in crafting new and versatile program designs can be seen throughout utility DSM programs across the country. He was a visionary in spurring metamorphic change in targeting and including small- and medium-sized industrial sites in utility energy efficiency programs that typically served only large customers. He was on the forefront of strategy and visionary guidance when SEM was new to the industry. His market transformation work with industrial fan variable frequency drives (VFDs) with the Northwest Energy Efficiency Association (NEEA) was groundbreaking in demonstrating the energy and non-energy benefits of VFDs in industrial refrigeration systems—a hallmark in the world of energy efficiency and one highlighted by ACEEE.
Rob’s leadership, expertise, mentorship, customer relationships, and vision have enabled Cascade to help customers meet their energy savings and decarbonization goals for over 30 years, and he has set Cascade up to succeed in doing so for the next 30.
He has created, shaped, and improved the industry indelibly. Although retired, Rob continues to guide Cascade and influence the industry as a Director on Cascade’s Board and through his community efforts, and we couldn’t be more proud that his efforts were recognized by the ACEEE this week.
