Quick summary: Brian Dinning grew up around coal mines in Pennsylvania. These days he's an entrepreneur and business consultant in energy and sustainability. He holds degrees in law, tax law, natural medicine, and theology. He has spent more than twenty years working to protect wildlife in Africa. 

How Brian's Career Began

His career started in coal country when nobody was calling it a career. His grandfather was a mining supervisor, and his father owned a big mine. He grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania, in a town where nearly every family had some tie to the mines. Nobody there needed a study to tell them the whole place ran on one resource. He saw it every day, and it left him with a question he still asks: what happens to these people when that resource runs out? He's been working on the answer for most of his life.

What Does He Do as a Strategic Consultant?

Brian Dinning looks at a company's plan and tries to find where it will break. Most of the time it's somewhere ordinary. The budget doesn't stretch far enough, or nobody read the permit rules closely, or the town next to the site was never asked what it wanted. Nearly all of his work is in energy. A project has to make money, sure, but it also has to follow the regulations and not damage the land around it. People who live close by have to be able to accept it too. Brian checks all of this at once. He's seen what happens when a project gets three of the four right. It usually looks fine for a few years, and then the missing piece shows up and costs a lot more to fix.

Tax credits and clean coal

Early on, Brian worked on Section 29 tax credit projects. The aim was to help companies develop clean coal technology and carbon sequestration research, cutting their carbon footprint and fossil fuel use.

That work shows his style well. A tax credit is a money tool. Clean coal is an engineering problem. Cutting emissions is an environmental goal. None of them can be solved alone, and he had to handle all three together.

His family eventually sold its mining interests to a US steel company. These days they're building a solar project on their two organic farms. From coal to solar in one family is a long jump.

Why four degrees?

Law and tax law taught him how energy development really works. All the rules, the incentives, and the costs he learns there. Natural medicine and theology pulled him toward a different set of questions. Who gets affected? What do the people involved value?

He says energy and sustainability problems rarely have purely technical answers. The strategies that last, in his view, mix legal frameworks, financial incentives, care for the environment, and the human side of how communities are touched by a project. He's also a licensed pastor and plans to publish several theology articles.

From Africa to wildlife conservation 

He visited South Africa during the apartheid era. His uncle had been a missionary there for forty years. Since then, he's spent more than two decades working to protect Africa's wildlife. That's where conservation stops being a business word for him. If you depend on land, water, or energy, using less and wasting less protects the thing you rely on. It also protects the budget.

What does ESG really mean 

ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance. Brian is writing a book on social impact investing and ESG, so he spends a lot of time on it. His advice for a company starting out is short. Write down what you do now. Find the weak spots. Pick a few things to track. Customers and investors don't want a mountain of paperwork. They want proof the company is run with care. He's also writing several books on natural beauty and anti-aging, which fits the PhD in natural medicine.

Responsible Growth and Long-Term Thinking

• Brian doesn't care much if a company has one big year. He cares whether the money, the land and the people nearby can still handle that growth five or ten years later.
• A lot of this comes from where he grew up. In his town, nearly every family depended on the mines. He kept thinking about what would happen to them when the coal was gone, and he still does.
• So he asks one thing of any company: will the plan still work in ten years? Plans tend to look fine early on. Then a rule changes, or costs jump, or it turns out nobody asked the town next door.
• Innovation, for him, is plain stuff. Use energy better, waste less. That's what his clean coal and carbon sequestration work was about.
• His family went the same way. They sold the mining interests and now they're putting up a solar project on their two organic farms. Quite a turn from coal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Brian Dinning?

He is an entrepreneur and strategic business consultant.

Where did he grow up?

The Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania. He grew up around coal mining families, and mining was the family trade too.

What is his family doing now?

They sold their mining interests to a US steel company. These days they're busy with a solar project on their two organic farms.

How long has he worked on wildlife protection in Africa?

Over twenty years now.

Does he write too?

He does. Right now he's working on a book about social impact investing and ESG.

Why does his legal and tax background matter?

Because energy projects have to follow strict rules and still make money. He knows both sides of that.

Conclusion

A strategic consultant helps a company choose a direction and then build a plan people can actually follow. Brian Dinning does this in energy and sustainability with an unusual background: a childhood in coal country, tax credit work on cleaner energy, more than twenty years of conservation in Africa, and four degrees that pull in different directions. Together, they give him a view that most advisors don't have.