Bill Tayler, who spent more than 40 years designing and implementing energy programs for the Navy and has played a top role in the service's aggressive renewable energy push, has joined the government relations firm SMI as a senior adviser.

Tayler most recently served as director of the Navy's shore energy office, overseeing the department's massive build-out of renewable energy on its bases, with the goal of getting half the department's energy from alternative sources by 2020. He has played a leading role in the department's development of programs for geothermal technology -- one of its greatest current sources of renewable power -- and ocean energy, which the Navy sees as one of its greatest potential sources (E&ENews PM, April 25, 2012).

Before that Pentagon post, Tayler served as director for energy development at the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, which develops energy policy for the service's activities around the world.

According to a news release from SMI, Tayler has had a hand in all shore energy and utilities policy out of the Navy over the past nine years and has helped advance legislation that allows the military to develop renewable energy resources, as well as oil, gas and coal methane projects on military land.

SMI's Helios Strategies unit focuses on bringing federal and private investment to energy technologies. According to its website, the firm's clients include Argonne National Laboratory and Ocean Power Technologies Inc., which last summer received approval from federal regulators for the country's first project to tap the Pacific Ocean's waves for electricity (Greenwire, Aug. 20, 2012).