From Boy Scout to global activist to New Jersey conservationist

Coming from a long line of generational activists, the new guy on the block in PSE&G’s Environmental department, Dan Laue, knows a thing or two about creating awareness around global environmental issues.

Dan’s position with PSEG is to coordinate with The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for permit acquisition and to coordinate on the continued maintenance and future infrastructure strategy to provide safe and reliable energy, while being good stewards of the environment.

He went to college for environmental conservation and volunteered with Greenpeace, a nonprofit organization that aims to create more awareness around global environmental issues. At Greenpeace, he said he worked to create awareness of toy companies that were deforesting endangered Indonesian tropical rain forest trees, displacing orangutans, tigers, and other threatened and endangered species.

This experience helped Dan immensely in his role today. “It helped me a lot with diversity. A big part of Earth Day is not only to protect the Earth, but to take care of other people as well. A big part of my takeaway with Greenpeace is learning how to work with a diverse group of people who come from a million different backgrounds and viewpoints, and how to direct and focus a large, diverse group into a goal-oriented fluid team.”

Additionally, Dan’s grandfather was the chief engineer on Greenpeace’s first boat, the Rainbow Warrior in the 1980s and 1990s. That was the main inspiration for Dan to get into the environmental field, along with being a Boy Scout as a youth.

Outside of his work at PSE&G, Dan maintains local nature trails for the New Jersey Nature Conservancy, walking them and picking up trash and cutting hazardous brush. He volunteers at Lake Hopatcong to help with invasive lakeweed projects, and monitors threatened and endangered species in the New Jersey area. He also collects rainwater for his compost to enhance his garden.

“Through my career with PSEG, I plan to be involved in responsible planning, and making sure that the infrastructures that are going in are aligned to a global identity of potential renewable resource use, as far as air, wind and solar go,” he said.

If he could have one superhero power to restore the planet, Dan said he would like the ability to sequester carbon – sucking it out of the atmosphere.