Drive Clean Indiana is celebrating 25 years and is hosting a stakeholder breakfast during NTEA’s Work Truck Week to celebrate its quarter century milestone.
“We are thrilled Drive Clean Indiana has reached the 25-year milestone,” Executive Director Carl Lisek said. “Drive Clean Indiana has been transforming transportation in our state by bringing the latest technologies to the streets and providing technical assistance with lasting results. We are proud to be the trusted, go-to resource for organizations who want to understand and adopt clean transportation technologies. We have had great board leadership and accomplished many milestones together and look forward to the future of transportation decarbonization throughout Indiana with our current and future partnerships!”
Drive Clean Indiana (DCI) is a nonprofit, member-based coalition dedicated to promoting sustainable transportation throughout Indiana. Drive Clean Indiana is proudly the sole clean cities coalition for Indiana. DCI was designated as the nation’s 71st Clean Cities coalition on June 15, 1999, and is one of more than 75 U.S. Department of Energy Clean Cities and Communities coalitions. Clean Cities coalitions advance the nation’s environment, energy security and economic prosperity through collaboration with communities by building partnerships with public and private stakeholders that create equitable deployment of clean transportation solutions for all.
The coalition began its story in the late 1990s through the leadership of Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) and, at the time, only addressed Northwest Indiana (Lake, Porter, and LaPorte Counties) under the name of South Shore Clean Cities (SSCC). The public utility, NIPSCO, provided support for SSCC to successfully achieve nonprofit status and to be formally recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy as a Clean Cities coalition.
The coalition initially was under the leadership of the first two coordinators, Liz Williams and Deb McClelland-Parker. In 2005, husband and wife Carl and Lorrie Lisek – Vice-President and President of Legacy Environmental Services, respectively -- became co-coordinators of the Clean Cities Coalition.
In 2009 offices were established at the Purdue Technology Center and Research Park in Crown Point. Expansion continued as office headquarters shifted to St. John in 2020. In 2021, SSCC rebranded to the new name of Drive Clean Indiana and then became the sole statewide Clean Cities & Communities Coalition. From a humble start of addressing only 3 counties, Drive Clean Indiana has seen tremendous growth and currently covers all 92 Indiana counties.
Drive Clean Indiana’s mission thrives through education and outreach, training, grant writing and funding acquisition, project management and the development of stakeholder partnerships. The Coalition was honored nationally by the Clean Cities Coalition Network and the Lisek’s were inducted into the Clean Cities Hall of Fame in 2015. The Lisek’s hold passion, undeniable charisma, the ability to easily forge lasting relationships, and prove themselves as crusaders representing environmental advocacy across the nation, which has truly propelled Drive Clean Indiana to today’s success.
Since 2009, Drive Clean Indiana has helped reduce the entire state’s gasoline gallon equivalents (GGEs) by over 300 million gallons and has helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2 million tons. The organization has also assisted its members in successfully acquiring over $ 200 million dollars for clean transportation projects.
Among some of the projects coordinated by Drive Clean Indiana:
A 25th Anniversary Celebration will take place on the morning of March 7, 2024, during National Truck Equipment Association’s Work Truck Week at the JW Marriot. Event sponsors include BP, BEST Equipment, CountryMark, Cummins, EZ EV by Tesco, Kerlin Bus Sales, and Ozinga.
