Vice President, Energy Division
Tetra Tech
Total years of experience :15 years, 0 Months
Manage overall power transmission & distribution (T&D) operations, including P&L for Western Canada, business development across Canada and help shape T&D strategy for North America. Co-authored the North-American business plans presented to the Board for 2014 and 2015.
Project Director for Fort McMurray West 500kV 510km transmission $1.6B project; leading owner’s engineer and consultant roles with the AESO.
Manage all regional transmission and distribution projects and relationships with utility clients: EPCOR, Enmax, ATCO and SaskPower.
Lead a multidisciplary team of 80 professionals in Calgary and Ontario from engineering, asset management, environment, design, drafting, project management, project controls and business development fields.
Generated revenue of $2.5M and manage long-term engineering projects of $1.5M/yr; lead negotiator for service agreements with four major utility clients and MOUs with three construction firms. Initiated and sponsored three national and one international IEEE/CIGRE conferences.
Managed T&D division operations, including P&L, at eight locations in the U.S to provide EPC services to the major Northeast utilities.
Lead role in stabilizing team after a major reorganization by implementing a project management office, harmonizing salary bands, renegotiating service contracts with three utilities and contractors, and salvaging relationships with existing major utility clients (PPL, BG&E and PSE&G).
Spearheaded team-building initiatives to create a mindset for efficiency, enhanced customer service and business growth, including introducing a social committee to reduce conflict and improve co-operation.
Managed a staff of 58 consisting of engineering, survey crews, design, project management, accounting, HR, project services and admin.
Managed development and commercial aspects of Enbridge Pipelines' utility infrastructure by leading a multidisciplinary team of senior project management, engineering and regulatory staff.
Demonstrated portfolio management skills by having direct responsibility of $250M of utility infrastructure development involving 270km of 138kV & 240kV transmission and 25kV distribution lines, 26 substations and 30MW of backup diesel generation to support pipeline expansion.
Introduced processes for monitoring projects progress, cash flows and risk reporting; setup contract structures to synergize resources amongst multiple utilities to optimize scope evaluations and create a cultural shift for teamwork among monopoly utilities.
Negotiated utility tariffs of $150M; saving $3M by optimizing existing transformers at Edmonton terminal. Saved $2.5M in equipment costs by influencing the utility to change their policy to allow remote tripping.
Led preparation and filing of regulatory applications to the utilities commission and authored the technical sections. Developed a database of historical project costs to improve estimating models for future project budgets.
Developed master power supply build-out plans, evaluated utility supply options, reviewed modeling studies, prepared cost/schedule estimates and communicated progress to executive management, prepared electricity forecasts and represented Enbridge at industrial advocacy groups.
Managed the Canadian electrical and instrumentation portion of the Southern Access project requiring upgrades at 25 pumpstations in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Wisconsin involving line and substation upgrades at seven sites, facility upgrades involving seventeen 5, 000HP motors & VFDs, three booster pumps, eleven electrical building expansions and various instrumentation upgrades across the line.
Negotiated savings of $2.3M in utility tariff reduction, $1.5M in lower motor cancellation costs, $4M in negotiating sale of spare transformers and surplus VFDs. Negotiated warranty extension on PCV actuators to five years and recovered $150k from vendor in troubleshooting costs.
Coordinated with regional operations, Control Center and contractors to schedule 70 complete pumpstation outages on the Canadian mainline.
Developed a procurement tracking tool later adopted by procurement dept. to track progress of procured material with tie into master schedule.
Prepared commissioning activity lists for major electrical equipment that became company standard for subsequent projects.
Served as EH&S rep for two years for 120 employees of Major Projects division, organizing and chairing quarterly safety meetings.
Managed large capital and maintenance projects in power transmission and telecom/SCADA. Successfully delivered major projects including:
a. New 138/25kV Edson Substation and 12 km 138kV line by Edson ($10M) and 138kV Circuit Breaker addition at Janet Substation.
b. New 50km long 266kV wood pole H-Frame Transmission line and two new 266/25kV Christina Lake and MEG Substations and connection at Leismer Substation ($50M) in Northern Alberta;
c. Province wide digital microwave Telecom TDM Network using Alcatel and Cisco equipment and transfer of AltaLink Control Center communication from TransAlta to AltaLink building. Led efforts with accounting to capitalize $43M in new assets, retire $15M of the old assets and salvage of reusable equipment.
Developed a financial reporting and forecasting tool that was adopted as standard by the PMO; introduced use of web meeting tools to conduct design reviews with Operations and EPC consultants located in different provinces.
Designed distribution transformers and regulators. Prepared design specifications, bill of material, test requirements and assembly instructions; and provided support during drafting, procurement, assembly and testing. Reviewed engineering data, test reports and tender packages.
Produced SaskPower and EPCOR contract status review reports and loss evaluation forecasts against contractual commitments.
Worked on the shop floor for 6 months to define part families and assembly sequence to automate design and cost estimating tools.
Developed a tool to design refurbished core and cores for voltage regulators and autoboosters. Administered design programs for new electrical designs including short circuit and magnetic field analysis, and cooling radiator sizing.
Wrote technical literature such as product briefs and official news releases. Published article about PTI’s patented substation transformer in the Line Magazine; developed company’s website and online quotation tool. Wrote some of procedure documentation for ISO 9001 certification.
Provided regional IT and telecom support to TransCanada’s regional office and ten compressor stations across Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Administered IT and telecom issues, monitored problem resolution and organized training of new software and hardware.
Managed the regional IT budget, forecasting future needs, overlooking computer donations, scheduling tasks and projects in the region.
Managed Mac-to-Intel migration of over 100 users, regional telecom upgrade, harmonization of Foothills Pipelines’ IT structure to that of TransCanada’s, implementing Y2K readiness plans and introducing digital cameras/scanners to save costs.
Completed the 1st two years of engineering
