Jan Mares became a Senior Policy Advisor with Resources for the Future in May 2009 where he was involved with work on energy and environmental issues.
Previously, he was a Business Liaison Director with the Private Sector Office of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from 2003 until 2009, and in the last several served as the Deputy Director. He promoted collaboration between DHS and associations and companies that are in the critical infrastructure and key resource sectors, and during the second term of the Reagan Administration, Mares was an Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Import Administration for about a year and a Senior Policy Analyst at the White House for two and a half years where he was involved with environment, energy, trade, and technology issues. From 1981 to 1985, Mares served as Assistant Secretary of Energy for International Affairs and Energy Emergencies, Assistant Secretary of Energy for Policy, Safety and Environment, and Assistant Secretary of Energy for Fossil Energy.
Before entering Federal service, Mares was with Union Carbide Corporation for about 18 years. For nine years he worked in the Law Department where he worked on antitrust compliance and purchasing issues as well as spending seven years on issues involving Union Carbide’s overseas activities. The other nine years involved business responsibilities in the chemicals area where he led an effort to create a chemicals joint venture with a Middle East government company and being the operations/profit manager for several groups of industrial chemicals. In 1980, Mares was Vice President General Manager of the Ethylene Oxide Derivatives Division. Subsequent to the Reagan Administration, he worked with Shaw Pittman (a Washington DC law firm), the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association, and the EOP Group (a Washington DC environment, energy and budget consulting firm).
Mares is an alumnus of Harvard College, receiving a B.A. degree in chemistry in 1958. He received his M.S. degree in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1960, and an LL.B. degree from Harvard Law School in 1963.
