Richard (“R.J.”) Lyman is the President of the Niskanen Center, as of March 2026. He previously chaired the Niskanen board of directors, on which he had served since 2018.

Mr. Lyman has been involved in matters of public policy his entire career, dating to his service as senior advisor for regulatory reform and director of environmental policy under former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld during the 1990s; he oversaw comprehensive revision of the Commonwealth’s mini-NEPA, and environmental review of the Big Dig, the Boston Harbor Clean-up, and over 1,000 other public and private development projects. He has been engaged in a number of state and local political campaigns, and he chaired Governor Weld’s 2020 Republican Primary Presidential Campaign.

Mr. Lyman’s private sector career has involved a wide variety of undertakings, including over a dozen years as an equity partner at the international law firm Goodwin LLP, a stint as President (and previously General Counsel) of General Compression (an energy technology and project development company, initially joint ventured with Conoco Phillips and eventually sold to a General Electric affiliate), founding chair of New England Hydropower Company, and director of a host of other for-profit companies.  He has also been engaged in various non-profit organizations and institutions, including his Episcopal Church parish, land conservation organizations, and social service providers.

Mr. Lyman is a magna cum laude graduate of Vermont Law School, where he served as research assistant to Norman Williams, the leading land-use law scholar of his generation, and Harvard College, cum laude in History, where he concentrated in American and Classical History.