John Northington, Sr.

Principal

John Northington, Principal

John Northington, Principal

John Northington is the founder of Northington Strategy Group, a Washington, D.C. based regulatory consulting firm with more than 35 years of experience in various aspects of energy development, and public and private land management matters. John has focused his practice on the regulatory intersection of federal public lands management and energy development. Given his experience both as a federal government regulator and being the fourth generation of his family to be involved in the energy business, John has been able to advise both business and conservation NGO clients to help resolve environmental, cultural, and habitat conflicts that invariably arise between the government, the conservation community and energy developers.

Current and past clients of John Northington and Northington Strategy Group include The Nature Conservancy, Equinor (Previously Statoil, USA), Trout Unlimited, ExxonMobil, University of Texas System, Lockheed Martin, 6666 Ranch, Hi-Crush, Inc, Beatty & Wozniak law firm, The Wyss Foundation, Bill Barrett Corp., Caithness Renewable Energy, LLC, Marathon Oil, Salt River Project, EPRI, Devon Energy, National Audubon Society, The Marwood Group, EOG Resources, Thompson Divide Coalition, Chevron Corp., Jackson Walker law firm, Gasco Energy, Newfield Exploration Company, XTO Energy, Ben Barnes Group, GenOn Corp, LLC, Natural Resource Solutions LLC, Noble Energy, the Yukon Conservation Society, BP America, Atlas Sand Company, LLC, and the Wilderness Society.

John began his government service with the Clinton Administration at the Department of Energy in 1993, where he served as White House Liaison, Chief of Staff for the Office of Fossil Energy, and Senior Advisor for Oil and Natural Gas Policy.  Before joining the federal government, John was involved in banking, commercial real estate brokerage, and the oil and gas business in Texas.

After his Department of Energy service, John served at the Department of the Interior as Senior Advisor to the Director of the Bureau of Land Management.  John also served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management with energy policy responsibilities for the former Minerals Management Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

John has been a visiting professor with the University of Nordland Graduate School of Business’s Master of Science in Energy Management Program. The University of Nordland is located in Bodo, Norway. He has also been a guest lecturer with Washington and Lee University’s Williams School of Commerce, Economics, and Politics. From 2002 until 2020, John was a member of The National Petroleum Council which is a federal advisory committee of the Secretary of Energy. During the 2020 election cycle, John served as a volunteer policy adviser for the Biden-Harris presidential campaign.

John, a fifth-generation Texan raised in Ballinger and Midland, received a B.A. in Politics from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. He is married to Pamela Payohnoh Johnson. Together they have seven children and three grandchildren.  John and Pam reside in Washington, D.C.