Speakers for the 2006 Southwest Renewable Energy Conference, Flagstaff, Arizona, August 2 & 3

Dr. Tom Acker
Dr. Tom Acker is an Associate Professor at Northern Arizona Universtiy (NAU) where he has been employed for 10 years. He has been involved in energy and renewable energy research and outreach since 1993. In 2003 he spent a sabbatical year working at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory working on wind and hydropower integration and wind-related transmission issues. He is the Director of NAU's Sustainable Energy Solutions Group

Sandra Begay-Campbell
Sandra Begay-Campbell is a Principal Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories and serves a Regent (Trustee) for the University of New Mexico. Sandra leads Sandia’s technical efforts in the Renewable Energy Program to assist tribes with renewable energy development. Sandra is the former executive director of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES), a non-profit organization whose mission is to increase the number of American Indian scientists and engineers. In 1987, Sandra received a Bachelor of Science - Civil Engineering degree from the University of New Mexico. She worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories before she earned a Master of Science - Structural Engineering degree from Stanford University and she also worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

In 2000, Sandra was a recipient of Stanford University 2000 Multicultural Alumni of the Year Award and she was also selected as a recipient of the Governor's Award for Outstanding Women from the New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women. Sandra was awarded the 2003 Women of Color Emerald Honor for Community Service during the Third Annual Women of Color Research Sciences and Technologies Awards Conference. Recently, Sandra received the 2005 UNM Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award and recognized in a new book profiling women engineers, “Changing Our World: True Stories of Women Engineers." Begay-Campbell is included in the chapter "Women in Power", which describes her effort to provide electricity through solar panels and other alternative energy solutions to hundreds of remote tribal members on the Navajo Reservation.

Thomas A. Carr
Thomas A. Carr serves as the staff attorney and economist for the Western Interstate Energy Board. Mr. Carr provided staff and technical support for the Wind Task Force and Transmission Task Force of the Clean and Diversified Advisory Committee (CDEAC), participated in the Seams Steering Group-Western Interconnection (SSG-WI) transmission planning effort identifying generation resources, served on the Western Congestion Assessment Task Force, and contributed to the Committee on Regional Electric Power Cooperation’s work on transmission regulatory principles work group (TREG). Mr. Carr serves as staff attorney for the newly created Western Interconnection Regional Advisory Body that will advise Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on reliability issues in the West. Mr. Carr was also the principal researcher on a grant project evaluating the linkage between utility resource plans and western transmission planning efforts, and problems with queue policy for interconnection and transmission service.

Prior to joining the Western Interstate Energy Board, Mr. Carr was an assistant professor at Middlebury College where he taught economics and researched issues in environmental and natural resource economics. Mr. Carr returned to Colorado to become an attorney and practice law in the fields of environmental law and water law. Mr. Carr received a PhD in economics from the University of Colorado in 1988 and a law degree from the University of Denver in 1998.

Jill Cliburn
Jill Cliburn, through her Santa Fe-based firm provides renewable energy market assessment and development support to utilities, government agencies, and the renewable energy industry. Current clients include the Western Area Power Administration, Wind Powering America Program, and Electric SUN, a consultancy focused on utility-driven solar investments. Her 25-year career follows the evolution of utility energy services and renewable energy strategies, including positions with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, the Springfield, Illinois municipal utility, American Public Power Association, and by contract to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Edison Electric Institute, professional associations, regional energy agencies, and consulting firms. Her work is now centered around sound business strategies that bring the utility industry into play to address climate change, risk reduction, and related issues.

Michael DeAngelis
Michael DeAngelis is the Program Manager of the Advanced, Renewables and Distributed Generation Technologies Program at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). Mr. DeAngelis has actively worked to research, develop and commercialize innovative renewable energy, energy efficiency and distributed generation technologies for the past 28 years. Recently, he was the Deputy Chief of the Technology Systems Division of the California Energy Commission where he initiated and managed several major alternative energy research and commercialization programs. He formerly worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado, at British Columbia Hydropower Authority, and was a lecturer on alternative energy at California State University. He has given hundreds of presentations on the subject of alternative energy, published more than 30 reports or papers, and has Bachelor of Science and Masters of Science degrees in environmental science and environmental planning (California State University, Sacramento and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada).

Dr. Gary Deason
Dr. Gary Deason serves as Deputy Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff. He works with NAU, the Flagstaff community and the State of Arizona to advance more sustainable practices, policies and technologies associated with energy production and use, resource consumption, waste, transportation practices and policies, and community design and development. Dr. Deason teaches in the Environmental Science department, directs the NAU campus sustainability program, coordinates the ERDENE program for environmental research and sits on the Governor’s Solar Energy Advisory Council.

Donald Davies
Donald Davies received the B.S. and M.E. degrees from Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, in 1978. He has been an employee of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) since 1983. For many years he participated in the WECC System Review Work Group and helped compile WECC's annual Study Program reports documenting the results of power flow and stability studies. He currently participates in the WECC Modeling and Validation Work Group and participates in stability modeling. He participated in the WECC transmission constrained production costing analysis database update in the mid 1990s and in more recent modeling/study/data gathering efforts including the recent SSG-WI (Seams Steering Group - Western Interconnection) work where he chaired the SSG-WI Load Modeling effort. He also participated in the recent WCATF (Western Congestion Assessment Task Force) study that was presented to the DOE.

Abraham Ellis
Abraham Ellis has been at PNM since 2001, in the Transmission Operations Department. His responsibilities include large generator interconnection, transmission expansion planning and special projects related to transmission system performance and monitoring. Currently, Mr. Ellis is Chairman of the Modeling and Validation Work Group and the Wind Generator Modeling Group of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council. He is involved in several wind generation technical and policy-related activities at the regional and national level. He recently received an achievement award from the Utility Integration Group for significant contributions to advancing the state of the art in utility wind engineering. Mr. Ellis graduated from New Mexico State University in 2000 with a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and has been a registered Professional Engineer in the State of New Mexico since 2004.

Lori Faeth
Lori Faeth is the Policy Advisor for Natural Resources and Environment to Governor Janet Napolitano. Ms. Faeth previously worked as the Director of Government Relations for The Nature Conservancy of Arizona. She moved to Arizona from the Washington, DC metro area where she worked as a Policy Associate in the Government and Community Relations Division of the Conservancy’s National Office.

She has more than ten years experience with natural resource policy issues at both the state and federal level. In addition, she worked at the state and local level to create public funding sources for conservation. Prior to her public policy work, Ms. Faeth ran a successful residential and investment real estate business in central Pennsylvania. She lives in Phoenix and in addition to spending time with her two sons enjoys hiking, jogging and reading.

Jeffrey Ghilardi
Jeffrey Ghilardi is currently a Sales Manager for the GE Energy Power Generation Group that operates within the GE Infrastructure business. In this role he is responsible for the sales of the full range of power generation equipment offered by GE, which includes both renewable, and fossil fuel technologies.

Since graduating from the University of California at Davis with a degree in Civil Engineering in 1972 his career has covered a broad range of responsibilities in the area of infrastructure development, financing, construction and operation and has ranged from bridges and highways; to water and sewer systems; to residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural development; to transmission and power generation systems.
The last 20 years of his career have been primarily focused on renewable energy and in particular wind energy. He has been involved with over 2000 MW of renewable energy projects in the US, Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

Rick Gilliam
Rick Gilliam is a Senior Energy Policy Advisory for Western Resource Advocates (WRA)where he is an advocate for effective clean energy policies and practices throughout the Interior West. He was the lead environmental representative for the renewable portfolio standards (RPS) in Arizona and Nevada, and the drafter of RPS legislation in Utah and Colorado. He is the principle author of Amendment 37 - the renewable energy ballot initiative in Colorado passed by the voters in 2004, and lead proponent for a coalition of wind and solar industry and advocacy organizations on implementation rules. In 2005, Mr. Gilliam received the first Larson-Notari Award for advancing renewable policy from the Colorado Renewable Energy Society, and was selected by the Denver Business Journal as one of Metro Denver’s Top Business Newsmakers in its 2005 Power Book. He was also the recipient of the University of Colorado’s Wirth Chair Community Award in 2006.

Mr. Gilliam has a B.S. in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York and a Masters of Environmental Policy and Management from the University of Denver. Previous employers included the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Public Service Company of Colorado. In 1994, Mr. Gilliam joined the Land and Water Fund, now known as Western Resource Advocates.

Dr. Bill Golove
Dr. Bill Golove is a Scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Department of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Dr. Golove is a technical advisor to various federal agencies, notably the Department of Energy, U.S. Postal Service and Department of Veterans Affairs, in the areas of renewable distributed generation projects, green power purchases and energy efficiency retrofits. He is the immediate past Chair of the Public Renewables Partnership and a Board Member of its predecessor organization, the Public Sustainability Partnership. Dr. Golove also leads work on project level analysis of clean energy projects in developing countries using ProForm, an integrated financial and environmental analysis tool. Recently, he has begun research into the technical and financial performance of commercial-scale, customer-sited photovoltaic systems. He has an A.B. in Political Science, an M.B.A. in Business Administration and a Ph.D. in Energy and Resources, all from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Golove has published over 30 papers in academic journals, conference proceedings and governmental research reports. He received a Presidential Award for Leadership in Federal Energy Management in October 2003 for his work with the U.S. Postal Service.

Bob Gough
Bob Gough is an attorney with graduate degrees in sociology and cultural ecology, with over 30 years experience in two fellowships on tribal cultural and natural resource and utility issues.
Mr. Gough was the first director, and then consultant to the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Utility Commission. He serves as the founding secretary of the Intertribal Council On Utility Policy (COUP), an organization composed of federally recognized Indian tribes in the Northern Great Plains providing a forum on rights and resources for utility services on tribal lands. He participated in WAPA negotiations for tribal allocations of federal hydroelectric power, helped develop Indian Country’s first utility-scale wind turbine project at Rosebud, and is currently co-directing an 80+ MW intertribal wind project in the Northern Great Plains.

Mr. Gough co-chaired the USGCRP’s National Assessment “Native Peoples/ Native Homelands Climate Change Workshop” held in Albuquerque in 1998. Mr. Gough contracts with the U.S. Department of Energy’s - Wind Powering America program’s Wind Powering Native America Initiative. He also co-directs the NativeWind.org and Energy Independence Day campaigns supporting partnerships between ICLEI-Cities for Climate Protection and the Intertribal COUP tribes aimed at building sustainable reservation economies based upon renewable energy.

Richard Hayslip
Richard Hayslip is Assistant General Manager for Environmental, Land, Risk Management, Technology Initiatives & Telecom for Salt River Project. Mr. Hayslip has executive responsibility for all of SRP environmental activities, as well as other corporate functions. He reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer and is a member of the senior executive staff. SRP is the 3rd largest public power utility in the United States with over 5,000 megawatts of generating capacity.

Mr. Hayslip holds leadership positions in several industry groups and has participated in a number of stakeholder consensus building processes at the federal, state and regional level. He was a member of EPA’s Subcommittee on the Implementation of New Ozone and PM standards and was an active participant in the Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission. Mr. Hayslip is responsible for relationships at the federal, state tribal and local environmental agencies. He has received a number of gubernatorial appointments and is active in several community organizations.

Mike Hightower
Mike Hightower is a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in the Energy Security Center at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is a civil and environmental engineer and has over 25 years experience in research and development projects. This includes structural and geomechanics research in support of space and penetrating weapons systems, research and evaluation of innovative environmental technologies for industrial and nuclear waste treatment and cleanup, and security and protection of critical water and energy infrastructures. Mike holds Bachelor and Master degrees in civil engineering from New Mexico State University. He serves on the Executive Committee of the New Mexico Pollution Prevention Technical Resource Center, the Board of Directors of Citizens for Responsible Energy, is past-Chair of the Waste management Education and Research Consortium Industrial Advisory Board, and past-Chair of ASME’s Environmental Engineering Division.

William J. Keese
Bill Keese served eight years as Chair of the California Energy Commission, an appointee of both Republican Governor Wilson and Democratic Governor Davis. He continues to serve California as an appointee of Governor Schwarzenegger to the Advisory Panel to review California’s Public Goods programs. Mr. Keese most recently co-chaired the Western Governor’s Clean and Diversified Energy Advisory Committee, assisting the Governor’s develop a plan to achieve their goal of developing 30,000 megawatts of clean and diversified electricity generation in the West by 2015 and a 20% increase in energy efficiency by 2020. He is a graduate of Loyola Law School. He serves on the Boards of the Alliance to Save Energy and Calpine Corporation, and is a strategic consultant to the North American Insulation Manufacturers.

Barbara D. Lockwood, P.E.
Barbara D. Lockwood, P.E. is the Manager of Renewable Energy for Arizona Public Service (APS) where she is responsible for APS’ renewable energy programs including wholesale energy acquisition, customer programs, initiatives and policy. Ms. Lockwood joined APS in 1999. She began her career in the chemical industry at E.I. DuPont de Nemours in various engineering and management roles on the east coast. Subsequent to DuPont, Ms. Lockwood moved into consulting and managed diverse projects for national clients across the United States. Ms. Lockwood holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Clemson University and a Master of Science degree in Environmental Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. Ms. Lockwood is a registered professional chemical engineer in Arizona and California.

Laura Meadors
Laura Meadors is an Associate at Evolution Markets. Ms. Meadors provides brokerage, structured transaction, and environmental finance services for the voluntary renewable energy credit (REC) markets and the Northern California emissions reduction credit (ERC) markets. Ms. Meadors is an expert on leveraging financial markets for environmental services. She joined Evolution Markets from the Deschutes Resources Conservancy in Bend, OR where she managed the organization’s water leasing and banking program. Ms. Meadors also provided market analysis for a commodity arbitrage hedge fund in New York and Charles River Associates, Inc., a global economic and litigation consulting firm. She holds a master’s degree in natural resource economics from Yale University and a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College.

Randy Manion
Randy Manion has managed Western Area Power Administration's (Western) Renewable Resource Program from January 1997 to present. His primary responsibilities include promoting renewable energy technologies to 680 utilities across Western’s 15-state service area. Manion brings 27 years experience in renewable energy and demand-side management to this position. He holds a B.A. in Public Administration; is a Certified Energy Manager (CEM) with the Association of Energy Engineers, and has actively held positions on several boards and advisory committees, including the Sustainable Building Industry Council in Washington, DC; the Electric Power Research Institute; and the American Public Power Association. Prior to Western, Manion designed and managed the Imperial Irrigation District's (IID) first conservation and renewable energy program. Prior to IID, Manion worked as an energy consultant in the Pacific Northwest for Energy Counselors Inc., managing energy auditing projects for the Oregon Department of Energy, Bonneville Power Administration, and Grays Harbor Public Utility District, among others.

Dr. Michael Milligan
Dr. Michael Milligan is a consultant to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, where he works on grid integration impacts of wind generation. He has worked on issues such as the ancillary service impacts of wind generation, the value of accurate wind forecasting, optimal selection of geographically disperse wind power plants, modeling wind plant variability, and reliability contribution of wind power plants. He has authored or coauthored more than 70 papers and book chapters, and has participated in wind integration and transmission studies in many parts of the U.S. Dr. Milligan has M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Colorado, and B.A. from Albion College.

Art Muller
Art Muller is a native Texan, earning his Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington with post graduate work in Business Management from Utah State University and the University of Arkansas at Monticello. During his early years of industrial employment, Mr. Muller served as Project Engineer, Plant Engineer and Facilities Engineer in Memphis, TN, Monticello, AR, Summerville, GA, Sedalia, Mo, and Shawnee, OK. His most recent employment in the industrial field as Engineering Manager allowed Art to realize that safety, as well as environmental, conservation, and energy concerns, were not considered important areas and weren’t always practiced. Seeing this first hand and being concerned, he read extensively and took advantage of extra training in these areas and in 2002, joined the Citizen Potawatomi Nation as the Environmental and Energy Director, where his earlier engineering expertise, management, and organizational skills are also utilized as Director of Roads and ICDBG. Among his most prized awards is the Silver Beaver, which Art earned for his many years of service as a Boy Scout Leader and District Commissioner in the Boy Scouts of America in Texas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.

Joanna Prukop
Joanna Prukop is the Cabinet Secretary for the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department where she oversees eight divisions for the State of New Mexico. They include the State Forestry, State Parks, Youth Conservation, Mining and Minerals, Energy Conservation and Management and Oil Conservation Divisions as well as the Waste Isolation Pilot Project and Department of Game and Fish. Under her leadership the Department has led a statewide effort to enact funding for conservation, agricultural, and clean energy projects. The Department has helped draft New Mexico’s first strategic plan for controlling invasive plant species through watershed management, and assisted in the implementation of the first ever Forest and Watershed Health Plan.

Previously, Secretary Prukop was with the Department of Game and Fish for 26 years, and retired from that agency in 2002. She has received numerous awards and honors including the recognition of her peers in 2000, when she received the Wildlife Professional of the Year Award from the New Mexico Chapter of The Wildlife Society. Most recently she was the principle author of a White Paper on The Future of the North American Model of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, which was unanimously adopted by the International Association of Fish and Wildlife in 2002.

Tom Sacco
Tom Sacco is the Director of the Tribal Energy Program within the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). Mr. Sacco initiated the Tribal Energy Program in 1999 as a means to address the growing interest in renewable energy technologies within Indian Country. Prior to his current position, he was the Director of EERE’s Office of Technology Transfer and managed numerous international export promotion programs. Before joining EERE in 1992, he served as a Senior Trial Attorney with the DOE’s Economic Regulatory Administration litigating oil and gas pricing and allocation violations. Prior to joining the Department of Energy in 1979, he served as Staff Counsel to the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives investigating the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and was in private practice in his home state of Connecticut.

Julia Sayre
Julia Sayre is an assistant vice president in George K. Baum & Company’s Denver Public Finance office. Ms. Sayre is involved in the transaction execution and quantitative structuring of both tax-exempt and taxable debt financings. She has structured numerous fixed rate and variable rate bond issues and is involved in both general obligation and project financings. Ms. Sayre is also responsible for preparing credit and debt capacity analysis reports and works with borrowers to determine interest rate hedge strategies. Ms. Sayre holds a B.A. in History from Harvard College.

J. Rachel Shimshak
J. Rachel Shimshak has been the Director of the Renewable Northwest Project since its inception in 1994. On her watch, RNP has supported the implementation of more than 1,000 MW of wind in the Northwest. Before moving back to the Northwest, Ms. Shimshak was the Policy Director for the Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources where she worked on electricity, natural gas, oil, conservation, renewables, and emergency planning issues. Prior to that, she was the Legislative Director for the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group. Ms. Shimshak graduated from the University of Oregon and is a native Oregonian.

Alan Watt
Alan Watt has been with U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development since August 1988. Previous duties in the Coolidge, Buckeye and Mesa County Offices included administering farm and housing loan programs covering Pinal, Gila, Maricopa and Yavapai Counties. Prior to being assigned to commercial loans, he was the RD Guaranteed Single Family Housing Coordinator for rural Arizona and has had extensive experience working with and on Indian Tribal Nations. As the State Rural Energy Coordinator in the Business and Cooperative Section at the Rural Development Arizona State Office he reviews and administers business loans and grants including Section 9006, Renewable Energy Loans and Grants. Mr. Watt has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Agriculture from the Arizona State University.

V. John White
V. John White is the Executive Director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies (CEERT), which he co-founded in 1990. CEERT is a non-profit coalition of the nation’s leading public interest environmental groups and businesses working on energy efficiency and renewable technologies. Mr. White is also a legislative advocate and political consultant, working with public interest environmental groups such as the Clean Power Campaign, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense. He also provides strategic advice and consulting for renewable energy and green technology companies, and for state and local governmental agencies.

Mr. White served as a senior policy consultant for nine years on the staff of the California Assembly before starting his consulting and lobbying business in 1983. Over the course of his 30-year career, he has been involved in the drafting, negotiation, and passage of landmark air quality and energy legislation and innovative regulatory programs to accelerate improvements in air quality, global warming, and renewable energy sources. In the last ten years, his efforts have resulted in a $10 billion investment in energy conservation and renewable energy in California. Mr. White currently serves on the board of directors of the California League of Conservation Voters, the Renewable Northwest Project, and the Environmental Council of Sacramento. He also serves in an advisory capacity to the Western Clean Energy Campaign and the Interwest Energy Alliance. From 1997-2000, he served on the Board of Governors of the California Independent System Operator, which manages the states electricity transmission grid.

Theresa Williams
Theresa Williams was named Strategic Initiatives Officer for Western Area Power Administration in March 2005. She previously served 9 years in managerial positions overseeing administrative programs and 15 years working in staff and managerial positions in the areas of power marketing and energy efficiency and renewable energy. As Strategic Initiatives Officer, Williams manages Western’s Federal Renewable Energy Program and leads and directs a wide variety of special initiatives which involve performing studies and analysis and formulating and evaluating policy. Some of the areas that she is currently focusing on include training initiatives for power system maintenance and energy marketing staff, workforce planning, renewable energy, and web site development.

Williams has more than 25 years of Federal experience. She began her Federal career with the Bureau of Reclamation in 1980 as an economist and joined Western in 1985 as a public utilities specialist. In 1990, as the Energy Management and Planning Manager, she led Western’s Energy Services Program and development of the Integrated Resource Planning requirements. Williams holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Utah.

Kate Zocchetti
Kate Zocchetti has a BS in Environmental Science and is an Energy Commission Specialist II at the California Energy Commission. For eight of the eleven years at the Energy Commission, Ms. Zocchetti has worked in the Renewable Energy Program, and for the last year and a half, as WREGIS Project Staff on implementing the renewable energy tracking and registry system required by California’s RPS legislation. She is the acting Program Lead for WREGIS.