Sarah Truitt is the group manager for the Prize Innovation Excellence Team. In this role, Truitt manages the group’s growing capacity to implement innovation competitions that have facilitated $250M in prize awards over the last 5 years and develops new capabilities that expand the American-Made Program. Truitt also oversees a portfolio of prizes funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office. For nearly 14 years, Truitt has worked in many scientific and operational areas across NREL. Truitt has managed large portfolios of U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) work, developed programmatic strategy on workforce development and technology commercialization topics for DOE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office and Building Technologies Office. Prior to joining NREL, Truitt managed a staff of 12 working at DOE headquarters in Washington, D.C. and spent 2 years working in the California solar industry selling solar energy systems and representing the solar industry perspective on the California Solar Initiative, a landmark incentive policy passed in 2006.