Enchanted Rock at Microgrid Global Innovation Forum

Jun 1, 2017

Enchanted Rock attended the 4th Microgrid Global Innovation Forum in Washington, D.C. from May 16-17, 2017. Thomas McAndrew, Founding Partner, President, and CEO of Enchanted Rock participated as a speaker to discuss the value of microgrids in North America.

Enchanted Rock’s Natural Gas System

Thomas McAndrew spoke alongside other microgrid industry leaders and discussed Enchanted Rock’s history as well as their cutting-edge On Demand Electric Reliability (ODER) product which provides a robust, highly reliable, ultra-clean, ultra-quiet natural gas backup power system at a cost to the customer that is 10-15% of the cost of competing systems.

Expanding Microgrid Projects in North America

The 4th Microgrid Global Innovation Forum zeroed in on “refining the value proposition and business case for microgrids in North America, integration with the larger grid, and case studies of grid-tied and off-grid projects and pilots to date,” as stated by AltEnergyMag.

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Thomas McAndrew

Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Thomas McAndrew founded Enchanted Rock in 2006, focusing on distributed energy resources that increase reliability, decrease cost, and decrease carbon footprint for commercial, industrial and institutional customers. In 2009, Enchanted Rock pioneered the launch of electrical reliability as a service and since then, has commissioned over 530 MW of distributed generation at over 250 sites, starting initially with emergency diesel and transitioning over to the cleanest resiliency microgrid in the market.

McAndrew brings over 36 years of experience in the electricity business, ranging from large, complex nuclear plants to small, distributed electric generation.

McAndrew’s introduction to energy was in engineering and operations on two US Navy nuclear power surface ships, the USS Eisenhower and USS South Carolina. He spent six years operating and maintaining nuclear propulsion plants and qualified as a Naval Nuclear Chief Engineer for the Nimitz Class aircraft carrier. After his time in the US Navy, McAndrew worked as a maintenance support engineer for the Southern Company at their Plant Farley nuclear business, where the cost of loss of electricity to critical loads is extremely high. He then shifted to the financial side of energy, helping several energy merchants build profitable energy trading and risk management operations. At his last merchant energy company, Calpine, McAndrew also supervised the commercial startup of many new natural gas combined cycle power plants

McAndrew received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M, Masters Equivalent in Nuclear Power Operations from the US Navy, and a Master’s in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

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Jayesh Goyal

Chief Revenue Officer

Jayesh Goyal joined Enchanted Rock as Chief Revenue Officer in 2022 and has over 25 years of experience in commercial leadership roles in the energy and telecommunications industries. Prior to working at Enchanted Rock, Jayesh was SVP of Sales and Marketing for Aggreko’s Rental Solutions business, and CEO of Younicos, an energy storage startup acquired by Aggreko in 2017.

Jayesh has also led sales organizations in the utility scale solar market, and in the telecom industry. Jayesh has a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (India), and an MBA from the University of Colorado.

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Thais Grossi

Chief Operating Officer
President of Enchanted Rock Electric, LLC

Thais Grossi joined the team in 2016 and has been responsible for shaping the culture and employee experience while leading all aspects of Enchanted Rock’s operations including Safety, Human Resources, Microgrid Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC), Supply Chain, and others. She is passionate about bringing inclusion and diversity away from the edge and into the core of Enchanted Rock’s priorities and operating model.

In her role, she drives execution, scalability, and leads the hiring, development, and engagement of the best and brightest. Prior to Enchanted Rock, Thais developed world-class organizations and operations internationally in the offshore oil & gas industry with special focus on aligning people strategies with business goals. Thais speaks 4 languages and received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Rio de Janeiro State University. She is a proud wife and mother of 2.

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Sanjeev Kumar

Chief Financial Officer

Sanjeev recently joined Enchanted Rock bringing extensive expertise from the energy industry with the majority of his career in clean tech and renewable energy. Previously, Sanjeev spent 10 years at Occidental Petroleum in Los Angeles in corporate development and corporate treasury. Sanjeev has been a CFO of private and public companies in renewable energy. He has completed two successful IPOs – Enphase Energy (NASDAQ:ENPH) and Terraform Power which is now part of Brookfield Renewable Partners (NYSE:BEP). Sanjeev has raised significant financing globally including through VC funding, debt and equity capital issuances in private and public markets as well as structured and project financings. Sanjeev graduated Magna Cum Laude in Business Administration from CSULA and has an MBA from the University of Southern California.

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Paul Froutan

Chief Technology Officer

Paul joins Enchanted Rock as the Chief Technology Officer. He served as the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Xenex Disinfection Services. Prior to Xenex, Paul led Google’s Global Data Center Operations and was responsible for designing, building and managing Google’s worldwide data center and server operations. He also served as the Vice President of Engineering for Rackspace Hosting where he built and led a team that pioneered the launch and operations of Rackspace’s datacenters, IP network, cloud and other key managed services. Paul holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

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Ian Blakely

Chief Strategy Officer
Executive Vice President of Asset Management

Ian Blakely joined Enchanted Rock in 2015 and brings over 22 years of experience in technology evaluation and strategy with 20 years in the energy industry. Prior to working at Enchanted Rock, Blakely held positions at several venture capital and private equity funds focused on the energy industry helping teams develop, commercialize and grow technology businesses. As CSO, Blakely is responsible for overseeing the planning and development of corporate strategy and new product offerings as well as leading corporate development activities. Blakely received an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Duke University.

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Corey Amthor

President

Corey Amthor joined Enchanted Rock in 2014 and brings 26 years experience in the commodity trading and risk management business, 18 of those years spent exclusively in energy.

Corey has held senior trading/manager positions at Calpine, ConAgra, Dupont/Conoco and Statoil. Corey’s tenure as Vice President, Trading and Risk Management, at Calpine resulted in a broad understanding of the energy marketplace through owning P&L responsibility of a large portfolio of electric generation, natural gas production, natural gas pipelines and electrical transmission. At ConAgra, Corey was responsible for price risk management of ConAgra’s $150 MM electricity budget that encompassed over 300 facilities. His primary responsibilities included identifying with plant managers ways to economically optimize energy usage at the plants, negotiation with utilities for the most economical energy prices and clarifying plants energy price risks in relation to long-term contractual agreements. Corey holds a BS in Agricultural Economics, 1989, and an MBA, 1991, both from the University of Missouri.

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Sameer Reddy

Sameer has over 15 years of experience in industrial and climate technology. He joined Energy Impact Partners (EIP) in 2015 and has since led the firm’s investments efforts across cybersecurity and distributed energy. His investments at EIP include Arcadia, Attivo, Dragos, Enchanted Rock, Finite State, Mosaic, Opus One, Particle, Powin, RapidSOS, Swimlane, Trifacta, and Urbint. Prior to EIP, Sameer spent five years at Evercore in the firm’s Power and Renewable Energy Group where he advised clients on over $15bn of M&A transactions. Prior to Evercore, Sameer spent three years at GE Capital’s energy venture capital group focusing on industrial and clean tech investing. Sameer has a dual degree in Finance and Economics from the University of Florida and currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.

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Payson Tucker

Executive Vice President of Business Development

Payson Tucker joined the Enchanted Rock team in 2012 and leads the structuring team responsible for pricing and contracting. In addition, he manages relations with the asset owners of the Power Depot – Texas Group A, LLC and Generate ER-NG, LLC generation portfolios.

Tucker received a Master’s in Business Administration from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Arts from the Plan II program at the University of Texas.

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Vance Tarter

Partner, Executive Director of Construction

Vance Tarter joined Enchanted Rock in 2012 and brings over 34 years of experience in electrical design, installation, construction and project management for the general and electrical contracting industries. Throughout his career, Tarter has led numerous projects throughout Texas and the Gulf Coast for heavy commercial, industrial, mainstream energy and power generation projects, which logged over one million accident-free man hours.

Tarter completed the IBEW/NECA electrical apprenticeship program, and he currently holds Master Electrician Licenses in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Virginia.

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Norman Smith

Executive Vice President of Engineering

Norman Smith joined Enchanted Rock in 2018 as Executive VP of Engineering. In this role, Norman is responsible for product engineering, sustaining engineering, applications engineering, and environmental compliance for Enchanted Rock’s dual purpose microgrid solutions. He brings expertise in product development, project management and critical-service systems management. He is an experienced leader and engineer with over 30 years of experience in diverse engineering applications including aerospace and subsea oil & gas prior to joining Enchanted Rock. Norman received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He holds patents in robotics and re-usable rocket propulsion, and he authored the book “Got Progress?” about the people-skills required for leading project teams.

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Allan Schurr

Chief Commercial Officer

Allan Schurr joined the Enchanted Rock team in 2018 and brings go-to-market expertise from over 30 years of experience in commercial and industrial energy services and technology, and innovative utility solutions. Schurr is responsible for market development and expansion of resiliency solutions and partnering with utilities.

Schurr holds a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Davis and a Master’s in Business Administration from St. Mary’s College in California. He is also a registered Professional Engineer in the State of California, and he is a co-inventor on seven patents related to distributed energy.

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Christy Pontious

Vice President Accounting and Controller

Christy Pontious joined the Enchanted Rock team in 2019 and brings accounting expertise for both public and private businesses. Pontious is responsible for the company’s accounting functions and internal controls. Prior to joining Enchanted Rock, Pontious held positions at Oasis Petroleum and Navigation Petroleum. She began her career with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in the Houston audit practice. Pontious received a Bachelor of Business Administration and Master in Professional Accounting from The University of Texas at Austin.

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Mario Metivier

Vice President of Engineering

Mario Metivier has worked with Enchanted Rock since 2011, and he brings extensive experience in Automation Integration/Engineering. Metivier served industrial and utility companies since 1983, and he co-founded Rotatronique Inc. in 1987, which specialized in industrial automation systems, robotics, and advanced process control technologies. Metivier’s educational background includes DEC Three Rivers CEGEP, Instrumentation and Controls, DEC Three Rivers CEGEP, Electro Dynamics, and DESS University of Quebec Trois Rivieres, Electrical Engineer.

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Bobak Fatemizadeh

General Counsel

Bobak Fatemizadeh joined the Enchanted Rock team in 2019 as General Counsel. Bobak is responsible for managing Enchanted Rock’s legal, compliance, and corporate governance matters and advising its Board of Directors. Prior to Enchanted Rock, Bobak was in the corporate practice groups of Vinson & Elkins LLP and Kirkland & Ellis LLP where he practiced mergers and acquisitions and securities law. Bobak holds a Bachelor of Arts from Boston College and received his Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School.

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Pete DiSanto

President of Enchanted Rock Operations

Pete DiSanto joined the Enchanted Rock team in 2020, bringing 20 years of experience managing and building field service operations specifically for the nuclear and fossil power generation industry. At Enchanted Rock, DiSanto is responsible for 24/7/365 fleet operations, the safe execution of all fleet maintenance activities, network control center operations, environmental compliance, and financial management of Enchanted Rock Operations. DiSanto received a Master’s in Facility Management and a Bachelor of Science in Marine Engineering, both from Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

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Ken Cowan

Senior Vice President of Sales

Ken Cowan joined the Enchanted Rock team in 2021 and is responsible for leading the global sales team. Ken brings over 30 years of extensive sales and business development experience. He has delivered leading-edge integrated solutions to clients across multiple industries such as manufacturing, datacenters, pharmaceuticals, and food & beverages in order for them to meet their energy and resiliency goals. Ken has earned his BSBA from The University of Nebraska Omaha and his MBA in Finance from University of St. Thomas, Cameron School of Business in Houston.

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Kenneth Chang

Senior Vice President, Marketing

Kenneth Chang brings over 20 years of marketing and sales experience in generating marketshare and revenue growth for large enterprise and startup companies. He is responsible for corporate branding, communications, go-to-market demand generation, field marketing, partner marketing, customer advocacy, and marketing operations. Prior to Enchanted Rock, Kenneth had led global marketing organizations across major technology companies with success that included pipeline and revenue growth by 3X, expanding awareness coverage in new global markets, and rebranding/relaunching companies after mergers.

Kenneth has received his Bachelor of Science in Physical Sciences from the University of Southern California.

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