Alexander Ellis

Alexander B. "Hap" Ellis III (born January 1, 1949) is a veteran energy investor and project developer with more than 40 years in the sector. He is a nephew of former President George H. W. Bush and a first cousin of former President George W. Bush and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. He was educated at Phillips Academy Andover and Colorado College (BA), and holds a master's degree (MPPM/MBA) from the Yale School of Management.

Ellis began his career as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Edward Brooke (R-MA), where he worked on national energy-supply and OPEC-pricing issues during the 1970s energy crisis. He then moved into the alternative-energy industry with a focus on energy efficiency, working at the furniture firm Knoll (later acquired by Westinghouse) before being recruited to Kenetech Corporation, then one of the nation's foremost wind-power development and turbine manufacturers. Over his operating career he co-developed the 500MW EcoElectrica combined-cycle and LNG facility in Puerto Rico (with Enron International), led permitting for large wind projects in Maine's Aroostook County, and developed a 540MW combined-cycle plant in Veazie, Maine.

In 1998 (with the firm's first fund launching in the early 2000s), Ellis and several partners founded RockPort Capital Partners, a Boston-based venture capital firm dedicated to energy, mobility, and sustainability technologies. Over roughly two decades as General Partner he helped the firm raise approximately $835 million across three funds and invest broadly across alternative-energy, oil-and-gas, and energy-mobility technologies. He served as Chairman of Clean Diesel Technologies Inc. and sat on the boards of companies including Northern Power Systems and BayCorp Energy (which acquired a ~17% stake in New England's Seabrook Nuclear Generating Station).

More recently, Ellis is a Founding & Managing Partner of New Energy Development Company (alongside Scott Shields and Tom Quine), which develops LNG, natural-gas, and hydrogen projects using its patented GreenER™ cryogenic technology. He also chairs the George & Barbara Bush Foundation, recently retired as Chairman of The Old Westbury Funds (~$44B AUM) at Bessemer Trust, and has served on the boards of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

• Energy transition and cleantech at the core. Through RockPort Capital, Ellis invests in "alternative and traditional energy, mobility, and sustainability" — backing industrial and consumer-facing companies "whose technologies and products provide innovative solutions."
• Multi-stage, domain-driven. RockPort positions itself as a "multi-stage venture capital firm" that pairs a "collaborative approach to investing" with "deep domain expertise, and insights into all aspects of energy and cleantech."
• Decarbonization focus areas. In his own recent work, Ellis targets "specific decarbonizing strategies in electric power (Abnaki Group) and natural gas/hydrogen (New Energy Development Co.)."
• Operator's lens. His diligence is grounded in hands-on project development (LNG, wind, combined-cycle power) rather than pure finance — in his words, he and his New Energy partners "bring our energy experience along with our compatible business ethics" to developing projects and capital solutions for North American energy.