Expert Details
Power Generation & Biofuels; Renewable Energy Technology Assessment; Turbine Design & Controls; Expert Witness (Energy/Power Litigation)
ID: 734946
Colorado, USA
Expert transitioned into independent engineering consulting in the early 2000s, progressively taking on project management, business unit leadership, and senior executive roles building and leading independent engineering practices for engineering consulting firms, with P&L and staffing responsibility for practices generating multi-million-dollar annual revenues. In 2012, Expert founded an independent engineering firm providing technical due diligence, development support, and owner's engineering services for power generation and biofuels projects, helping project developers secure financing and helping lenders evaluate and mitigate technical risk.
Over the course of this career, Expert has been involved in the design or independent review of more than 525 power generation and biofuels projects, representing a combined power generation capacity exceeding 107,000 MW and combined biofuels production exceeding 2.5 billion gallons per year, spanning traditional coal and natural gas generation as well as wind, solar, hydroelectric, biomass, landfill gas, anaerobic digestion, waste-to-energy, ethanol, biodiesel, and renewable natural gas technologies. Expert has served as an expert witness and provided regulatory testimony in approximately 15 matters involving power and renewable energy facility disputes, federal tax credit program litigation, and state utility regulatory proceedings, and has authored and presented multiple industry publications on technical and project finance risk management topics.
Education
| Year | Degree | Subject | Institution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year: 1995 | Degree: Master of Science | Subject: Mechanical Engineering | Institution: Union College |
| Year: 1992 | Degree: Bachelor of Science | Subject: Mechanical Engineering | Institution: Rochester Institute of Technology |
Work History
| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
|---|---|---|---|
| Years: 2012 to Present | Employer: Undisclosed | Title: Principal | Department: |
Responsibilities:Expert is the founder and owner of a firm to provide technical due diligence, engineering consulting, and development support for energy projects. The focus of Expert is to provide an additional level of engineering support to help developers to finance projects and to help lenders to understand, and mitigate, their technical risk on projects. Expert strives to provide value through the highest level of service and engineering expertise on a wide range of technologies.Expert has reviewed numerous power generation projects (a combined capacity in excess of 87,000 Gigawatts), Biofuel projects(a combined production capacity in excess of 2 billion gallons per year), Renewable Natural Gas project (a combined capacity of 13 million MMBtu per year). |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 2011 to 2012 | Employer: Mott MacDonald | Title: Sr. Vice President | Department: |
Responsibilities:Expert worked with the firm's senior executives to develop a U.S. Independent Engineering practice and to expand the firm’s presence in the North and South American markets. These responsibilities include managing the US IE practice, providing QA/QC reviews both internally and externally, sales/business development to promote the US IE practice, and all staffing for the IE practice.Expert also frequently supported project reviews as the project manager to maintain a presence in the market and to support firm’s clients throughout the world. |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 2007 to 2011 | Employer: Harris Group Inc. | Title: Vice President | Department: Financial Consulting |
Responsibilities:Expert was responsible for the P&L of Financial Consulting business unit, reporting directly to the CEO and the Board of Directors. Developed marketing plans and annual budgets to grow the independent engineering practice. Expert provided internal Quality Assurance by providing detailed review of all reports prior to issuance to the client. Supported the due diligence review of the project technology, contracts, construction, operations and maintenance. |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 2001 to 2007 | Employer: R.W. Beck | Title: Project Manager | Department: |
Responsibilities:Expert managed the due diligence effort on a wide range of facilities and technologies ranging from greenfield power facilities to sludge handling systems. Expert was one of the primary reviewers for Operations and Maintenance of power generation facilities and maintained the firm's O&M database. One of three engineers responsible for maintaining combustion and steam turbine technology reviews. Supported numerous diligence reviews including financing, construction monitoring, performance test monitoring, and annual operations and maintenance reviews. |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 1998 to 2001 | Employer: General Electric (formerly Woodward Governor) | Title: Mechanical Systems Engineer | Department: |
Responsibilities:Expert performed mechanical retrofits for all types of turbine control systems, specializing in mechanical-hydraulic control retrofits for large main-line turbines. Interfaced with customers to support technical integration of new turbine controls and provided direction on the proper demolition of old hydraulic control system and installation of the new turbine control system. This work included the construction management of the retrofit, commissioning, and testing of the new mechanical controls equipment.Expert developed processes to outsource all fabricated parts (i.e. valve actuators, manifolds, HPUs, etc.) and worked with purchasing and vendors to ensure an on-time delivery of mechanical components. Also, supported the ISO9000 efforts by assisting with internal audits and acting as a mentor for other internal auditors on the quality team. |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 1996 to 1998 | Employer: Zygo Automation | Title: Project/Software Engineer | Department: |
Responsibilities:Expert designed and engineered large, high-volume automation systems. Maintained project budgets, bill of materials, purchased parts, drawings, and customer relations. Directed drafters, designers, other engineers, and technicians towards the completion of the design and installation of the automation systems.Expert developed software to control the operation of state of the art automation systems. Led junior software engineers in the development of controls software for the automation systems primarily for the hard drive industry. |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 1995 to 1996 | Employer: Copper Mountain | Title: Youth Ski Instructor | Department: Ski School |
Responsibilities:During this time, Expert taught skiing to youth from ages 3 to 12. |
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| Years | Employer | Title | Department |
| Years: 1992 to 1995 | Employer: General Electric | Title: Product Design Engineer | Department: Steam Turbine Engineering |
Responsibilities:Expert designed steam turbines. During this chapter, he accrued and leveraged experience with blade design, high-pressure casings, low pressure hood, rotors, and packing. He progressed to be the responsible design engineer for an entire steam turbine upgrade.Expert was part of the internal ISO-9000 audit staff for the Power Generation division. |
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Additional Experience
| Expert Witness Experience |
|---|
| Expert has served as a testifying and consulting expert witness in approximately 15 engagements involving power generation and biofuels/renewable energy facilities, in addition to providing direct regulatory testimony. Subject matter has included: development-stage disputes involving solar and battery energy storage system (BESS) portfolios; an arc flash/personal injury matter arising from hydroelectric facility maintenance (no litigation filed); a dispute over reduced landfill gas supply; a coal-to-biomass plant conversion dispute; operational performance complaints at a circulating fluidized bed (CFB) power plant; causation analysis of a control system trip linked to an island-wide power blackout; a construction and performance dispute between an EPC contractor and a project owner for a biomass facility; four federal litigation matters (engaged by the U.S. Department of Justice) concerning Section 1603 cash grant program qualification for open-loop biomass and fuel cell projects; and litigation support for a waste-to-energy project and a biodiesel facility construction dispute, both of which settled out of court. Expert has also provided direct testimony to a state public utilities commission regarding the potential acquisition of an aging combined-cycle facility for utility rate base inclusion, and regarding a state clean energy policy initiative evaluating the retirement of approximately 900 MW of coal generating capacity. |
Career Accomplishments
| Associations / Societies |
|---|
| American Society of Mechanical Engineers |
| Licenses / Certifications |
|---|
| Licensed Professional Engineer (Colorado) |
| Publications and Patents Summary |
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| 7 publications and conference presentations, covering topics including managing technical and resource risk in project finance, thermal generation project risk, biomass project risk mitigation, power plant supply/demand trends, natural gas industry development, utility industry strategy, and turbine control retrofit practices — published/presented via industry conferences (e.g., Infocast Project Finance Tutorial, Power-Gen) and industry media (e.g., Greentech Media, a regional business journal, and an industry publication), 2003–2013 |
Fields of Expertise
electric energy generation, industrial construction management, energy-efficient steam turbine, energy generation, hydroelectric energy, engineering procurement construction, fossil-fueled steam generation, performance testing, coal combustion, activated carbon, combined-cycle electric power generating system, photovoltaic energy system, wind turbine, turbine design, gas turbine technology, biomass energy system, biodiesel technology, ethanol fuel production, biofuel, technical evaluation, financial modeling, project finance, Title V permitting, National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, construction project management, risk management