Dennis (MA, economics, 1973) and Kathryn Costello donated LED lighting to Ohio State’s Byrd Polar Research Center, bringing energy efficient solutions to the center’s cold rooms, arguably the most scientifically precious storage space on The Ohio State University campus.

Ellen Mosley-Thompson, director of the Byrd Polar Research Center and Distinguished University Professor of Geography, along with her husband Lonnie Thompson, Distinguished University Professor in Earth Sciences and Byrd senior research scientist, have been collecting ice cores from Earth's polar ice sheets and highest tropical peaks for decades, storing them in cold rooms at Scott Hall on Ohio State’s west campus. Under their leadership, the Byrd Polar Research Center has amassed one of the largest archives prehistoric ice core samples and the most extensive archive of tropical ice core samples in the world.

During a recent visit with the Thompsons, Dennis Costello offered to purchase and pay for the installation of new lighting fixtures around and in the cold rooms at Byrd. The Costellos’ gift included replacing all 120W Halogens with 40W LED Surface Wraps resulting in a 90 percent energy reduction with 100 percent improved light levels.

“I am deeply honored to be able to provide a gift that will illuminate and showcase one of the most impressive ‘libraries’ of the Earth’s climate history,” said Costello.

Dennis Costello is managing partner for Braemar Energy Ventures, a $600m venture fund dedicated exclusively to energy development. He has more than 30 years of experience in the energy and venture capital industries. He began his career in alternative energy with positions as a project manager at Midwest Research Institute and as a member of the original staff of the National Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI), which is now the National Renewable energy Laboratory (NREL). He is author of the book, New Venture Analysis: Research, Planning and Finance, and has published numerous papers and articles on the economic and market issues of solar energy commercialization.

Costello holds an MS degree in business from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. He also holds an MA in economics from Ohio State and a BA in economics from the State University of New York (SUNY). He sits on the boards of Nuventix, Fulham, Luminus Devices, Laser Light Engines, LumEnergi, NexSteppe, and Albeo. Costello is a member of the Board of the Fredonia College Foundation and on the Dean’s Advisory Council of the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography.

The LED lighting was produced and installed by Albeo Technologies, the first company to bring the advantages of energy efficient LED Lighting to the industrial and commercial marketplace. Albeo Technologies, along with dozens of other renewable energy start-ups, was launched with the help of Braemar Energy Ventures, of which Dennis Costello is one of four managing partners.