About NEI

Senior Vice President, Communications 

Mr. Peterson directs the Institute’s public affairs activities, including media relations, coalition management, advertising, editorial and creative services, public opinion research and industry communications.

At NEI, Mr. Peterson also has served as senior director for communications. He had led major branding programs to promote the benefits of nuclear energy. Mr. Peterson also has directed public affairs programs that support enactment of federal legislation, including the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and congressional approval of the nation’s nuclear fuel repository site, and recognition of nuclear energy in international climate change policy.

Mr. Peterson has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today and many industry publications, and has appeared on CNN, ABC News, CNBC, CSPAN’s Washington Journal, FOX News, National Public Radio and World Business Review. He is also a contributer to the Huffington Post.  He has presented speeches at policy, environmental, business and communications forums.

Before joining NEI, Mr. Peterson was director of communications for the American Nuclear Energy Council, a government relations organization for the nuclear energy industry and one of three groups merged in 1994 to form NEI. He also served as a senior media relations representative at Illinois Power and was a reporter and columnist at newspapers in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Mr. Peterson received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has completed the Reactor Technology Program for Utility Executives at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a member of the board of directors for the Public Affairs Council and NucNet, an international nuclear energy news organization, and serves on the advisory committee for the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. He also is a member of the National Press Club.