Donald van der Vaart

Van der Vaart holds a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Cambridge in England. He also holds a law degree from North Carolina Central University, a master’s degree in chemical engineering from North Carolina State University and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Van der Vaart was sworn in as Secretary Department of Environmental Quality on 2 January 2015, when Governor Pat McCrory named his predecessor John E. Skvarla to lead the N.C. Department of Commerce. After the election of Roy Cooper as new Governor of North Carolina, van der Vaart was one of several dozen political employees who were informed to be released from their positions by the incoming administration. Several days before Cooper came into office on 1 January 2017, van der Vaart and his deputy John C. Evans therefore demoted themselves to positions that were not political in nature. The former secretary returned as section chief to the Division of Air Quality, where he had worked for 20 years as an engineering supervisor and later as program manager before becoming deputy secretary in August 2014.

Van der Vaart was a leading figure in McCrory’s administration in the push-back of two dozen U.S. states against EPA regulations which they saw as overreaching. He is an advocate for decentralized regulations which should adhere to a cost-benefit calculation regarding the balance between conservation of the environment and protection of jobs.

At N.C. State University, van der Vaart is an adjunct professor in engineering, and also teaches environmental policy and law. His previous work includes scientific research at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and at Research Triangle Institute (now RTI International).

On 16 November 2016, van der Vaart along with his counterparts from Alabama, Nebraska, North Dakota and West Virginia signed a letter which urged then president-elect Trump to reign the EPA, which in their view has "run out of control" and "return environmental leadership to the states." The letter did acknowledge that an agency to address environmental needs was necessary, when it stated that "[o]ur country still needs the EPA, but not the EPA of recent years," which has become a danger to the nation's competitiveness on the international market through overregulation. There, the letter goes on, "[w]e must put an end to the idea that more regulation is always good, and instead allow state and local experts to improve the environment." In a podcast interview released by the John Locke Foundation on 21 September 2015, he discussed what he titled as "EPA Intrusion: The Federal Power Grab Over North Carolina’s Environment."

Van der Vaart is father of two grown sons and lives with his wife Sandy in Raleigh, North Carolina.