The Grainger College of Engineering

Bud Cherry

Bud Cherry
Bud Cherry
To Bernard H. 'Bud' Cherry, for decades of leadership and responsibility in directing power generation companies that have supplied the world with traditional and renewable sources of energy.

Chief Executive Officer, Eagle Creek Renewable Energy, LLC, Morristown, NJ Founder and Chair, Energy 5.0, LLC, West Palm Beach, FL

  • BS, 1962, Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • MS, 1963, Nuclear Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

During his extensive career as a senior executive in the energy business, Bernard H. "Bud" Cherry has held top leadership positions in several energy firms, including major energy providers and suppliers such as the Oxbow Group and Foster Wheeler Ltd. Under his leadership as President and CEO of the Oxbow Energy and Minerals Group, Cherry played a key leadership role in the successful creation and growth of Oxbow’s global energy activities. Oxbow financed, constructed, operated, and profitably sold seven power generation facilities located in the United States, Asia, and Latin America. Cherry was also responsible for the leadership of the development and operation of major coal and natural gas supply facilities in the Western United States.

Cherry joined Foster Wheeler’s Global Power Group in 2002, serving as CEO as a member of the successful turnaround management team. He also led the successful recapitalization of Northern Power Systems and its predecessor parent company, Distributed Energy Systems, Inc. Northern Power designs and supplies advanced technology wind turbines.

In perhaps his most high-profile contribution, as a vice president for General Public Utilities Corporation, Cherry led the successful $1 billion funding effort for cleanup of the damaged nuclear reactor system at Three Mile Island Unit 2. The cleanup and storage of the damaged reactor core was an endeavor that took nearly 12 years and cost approximately $973 million. In February 1991, the National Society of Professional Engineers named the TMI-2 Cleanup Program as one of the top engineering achievements in the United States.

More recently, Cherry has led efforts to promote renewable, green energy sources of hydroelectricity, wind power, and solar power. He is CEO of Eagle Creek Renewable Energy and founder and chair of Energy 5.0, LLC. Eagle Creek, a Hudson Clean Energy Partners Portfolio Company, is an owner/operator and developer of hydroelectric and other renewable power projects that provide clean energy to North American electricity consumers. Energy 5.0 develops, finances, constructs, and operates complex renewable energy production facilities.

An influential advocate and generous financial supporter of the Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering (NPRE) at Illinois, and of nuclear engineering in general, Cherry has served on NPRE’s Constituent Alumni and Industry Advisory Board for 11 years. He has also served as a panelist during the College of Engineering’s Higgerson Forum on Entrepreneurship in Engineering.

Current as of 2012.