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BIOGRAPHIES OF SPEAKERS

SOUTH DAKOTA WIND ENERGY CONFERENCE
October 29 & 30, 2001

JACK ALEXANDER is Senior Vice President Generation at MidAmerican Energy Company. He has been with MidAmerican or predecessor companies for 29 years. During his career, he has help positions in Gas Operations, Engineering, Corporate Planning, Electric Operations and Human Resources. Most recently, Alexander served as Senior Vice President of Energy Delivery having responsibility for gas and electric operations as well as customer service. In July of this year he moved over to generation to lead this business unit.
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ROBERT B. BERGSTROM is Florida Power and Light’s energy project director for wind business development in the midwest United States. Mr. Bergstrom is currently developing more than 200 MWs of new wind generating capacity to be installed in the midwest prior to the expiration of the production tax credits. Mr. Bergstrom is an attorney and holds a law degree from Drake Law School in Des Moines, Iowa, and a BA degree from Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. From 1986 to 1998, Mr. Bergstrom was legal counsel to investor owned utilities, first in Iowa, and later to Florida Power & Light Company. His practice focused in large part on environmental matters. He retains an active but reduce legal practice. Mr. Bergstrom has held a variety of roles at FPL Energy and Florida Power and Light, most recently he did a two-year tour as plant general manager for Florida Power & Light’s Putnam plant, a 500 MW combined cycle gas fired generating plant.

MIKE BRANDENBURG North Dakota Legislator

JIM BURG is a farmer, businessman, solider and a public servant. Jim is a 1963 graduate of South Dakota State University, a past state 4-H president, a past board member of the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce and past board member and secretary-treasurer of the South Dakota Retailers Association. Jim served in the South Dakota National Guard from 1963 until 1990 when he retired with the rank of Lt. Colonel. Jim served in the South Dakota House of Representatives from 1975-1984 and the State Senate during the 1985-1986 term. He was elected to the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission in 1986, 1992, and 1998, and elected Chairman in 1989 and 1997 through 2001. He is a member of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) Committee on Electricity, the Administration Subcommittee and the Board of Directors as well as Chairman of Washington Action. He is past president of the Mid-America Regulatory Commission (MARC). Jim currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Jim and his wife Bernice raised five children on their family farm just east of Wessington Springs, South Dakota (about midway between Sioux Falls and the State Capitol of Pierre.)
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LISA DANIELS is Director of Windustry, whose mission is to promote community-based energy by providing education, outreach and technical assistance to rural landowners, local communities and utilities, as well as state, regional, and nonprofit group collaborations. Windustry focuses on economic development from wind energy, valuation of environmental benefits, and distributed generation. Ms. Daniels has been providing wind energy information and technical assistance to farmers, elected officials, rural utilities and other interested groups since 1995. Windustry started as a project of Sustainable Resources Center and is now affiliated with the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy, a non-profit organization based in Minneapolis. Windustry is one of four founding partners of the Minnesota Sustainable Energy for Economic Development (SEED) coalition of more than 25 energy, environmental and rural economic interests. Currently, Ms. Daniels also serves as the Wind Energy Coordinator for the High Plains SEED, a coalition of energy and environmental advocates from seven states in the Midwest. From 1991 to 1995, Ms. Daniels worked as one to two staff to help launch Minnesotans for an Energy Efficient Economy. Ms. Daniels’ background includes more than twelve years designing, developing and delivering methods to provide technical assistance for computers in corporate and community education settings in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Twin Cities. She came to the energy/environment work in the early 1980s volunteering to help create Econet with the Farrallones Institute in Berkley, California. Ms. Daniels received a B.S. in Business Management from Bentley College in Walthan, Massachusetts. 

GREG DEAN grew up on a cattle and grain farm west of Wessington Springs, SD, and currently owns several parcels of land that he leases back to the operation. Greg is a graduate of South Dakota State University with degrees in Animal Science and Economics. He worked for state government for nearly 8 years for a variety of agencies including the state Centennial Commission, the Public Utilities Commission and as a senior staff assistant to Govs. George Mickelson and Walter Dale Miller.

After leaving the public sector, Dean worked for five years as Vice President of Member Services for the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Currently, he is the Director of Industry Relations for the South Dakota Telecommunications Association, a group of 30 South Dakota-based cooperative, independent, municipal and tribal telecommunications companies.

ANDY DETWEILER has a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from the State University of New York at Albany, and has been a researcher and professor at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT) since 1987. His specialty is atmospheric physics, and particularly the physics of thunderstorms. He has a background in meteorological observations, and the availability of the wind data set collected by Black Hills Corporation in the Black Hills area which led him to monitoring and evaluating wind energy potential in western South Dakota.

JOHN R. DUNLOP, P.E., is the manager of the American Wind Energy Association’s regional office located in Minneapolis, serving the nine northern plains states. He has a renewable energy consulting firm, and is a former manager of renewable energy programs in the Minnesota state energy office. He is a licensed professional engineer, with degrees in mechanical engineering and physics.

LAWRENCE FLOWERS is a team leader at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Wind Technology Center in Golden, Colorado, with principal responsibilities for Wind Powering American and International Village Power. He has been at NREL for 20 years, with responsibilities in solar, thermal, buildings, utility, industrial, international and wind applications. He has spent the last 8 years in wind technology with an emphasis on village and international systems. He was assigned the WPA national initiative lead in October, 1999. Prior to NREL, Mr. Flowers worked in the aluminum industry in manufacturing, applications engineering, and marketing. He has degrees in engineering and business administration.
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ROBERT GOUGH is an attorney with graduate degrees in sociology and cultural anthropology, specializing in cultural ecology, who has worked with Indian Tribes on cultural and natural resource issues over the past twenty years. He was the 1997 Indian Law Fellow at the University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota, specializing in research on energy and telecommunications utilities and tribal jurisdiction. In 2000, he was the El Paso Energy Research Fellow at the Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, working on technical and policy issues involved in connecting reservation based renewable generation onto the federal grid. Mr. Gough was the first Director of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Utility Commission, and presently serves as a consulting attorney to that commission, participating in negotiations with the Western Area Power Administration for allocations of federal hydroelectric power to the MniSose Intertribal Water Rights Coalition of Tribes in the Missouri River Basin. Mr. Gough currently serves a Rosebud Sioux Tribe delegate to, and Secretary of, the Intertribal Council On Utility Policy, an organization created to provide information on rights and resources for utility services on tribal lands with respect to regulatory authority, legislation, policy, and economic opportunity through partnerships in telecommunications and energy development. Intertribal COUP is composed of federally recognized Indian tribes in North and South Dakota and affiliates throughout the Great Plains. Mr. Gough is co-chair of the Native Peoples/Native Homelands Climate Change Workshop, part of the national assessment on climate change and variability through the United States Global Change Research Program. He also maintains a private practice in indigenous rights.

JIM GREEN National Renewable Energy Laboratory
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KENNETH HACH has been in the wind energy field for over twenty years. He first joined Zond in 1985 and has worked in various capacities of project development and management for Zond and others since that time. Mr. Hach has installed two dozen utilities on wind system’s interconnects. In addition to his work with Zond, Mr. Hach has developed seven hydro projects with a total capacity of 45 MW and completed the tax exempt bond financing for $20,780,000 on the last project in Illinois. He has developed two cogeneration projects with an installed capacity of 15 MW. Mr. Hach received his B.A. degree in Business Administration from Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and has completed additional advanced courses since then. Mr. Hach was the Midwest Regional Manager from Enron Wind where he headed up the largest three wind projects in the world: 107 MW and 103 MW in Minnesota and 194.5 MW in Iowa. The number of turbines totaling 410.25 MW. Today, Mr. Hach is Vice President of Clipper Windpower, LLC, a new development company of very experienced people. Jim Dehlsen, the founder of Zond Systems, is also the founder and chairman of Clipper Windpower, LLC.

RICK HALET has been involved with Xcel Energy’s wind research and development activities since 1980 when he was project manager for the NSP wind resource assessment project. He is currently the account manager for NSP’s largest wind developments and project manager of the NSP wind phase IV competitive bid process for up to 80 MW of additional wind generation. His relevant wind related work responsibilities include: instructor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison seminar titled, “Developing Successful Wind Energy Farms; NSP Project Manager for the North Dakota Wind Resource Assessment Program; NSP Project Manager Battelle Wind Turbulence Characterization Study; Manager of Xcel Energy Wind Resource Assessment Program (WRAP); Speaker, American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Windpower ’93 “A Primer on Wind Technologies for Utilities” Pre-Conference Seminar; Speaker, “Independent Power Co-Generation Plant Operations & Maintenance” Conference; Speaker, “Prairie Wind Resource Conference,” Bismarck, North Dakota; and Member, US Department of Energy Sponsored Joint Science and Transmission to Poland.
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JAY HALEY, P.E., is a mechanical engineer and associate with EAPC Architects Engineers, a full service architectural and engineering firm in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He spent six years as Engineering Director for an aerospace manufacturing firm, and then nine years as an energy research engineer. He’s been involved in wind energy since 1983. Jay has worked on wind energy projects with every tribe in North Dakota. He helped organize statewide windsmith training workshops for people involved in maintaining the five utility-scale wind turbines currently operating in North Dakota. Jay recently assisted the Griggs-Steele Wind Development Group in North Dakota in the planning and preparation of a bid for an 80 MW wind farm in response to Xcel Energy’s upcoming requirement. He is currently assisting communities throughout North Dakota in their plans to develop wind energy. Over the last year Jay has presented to more than 1000 landowners at 22 community meetings.
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STACIE HEBERT is the supervisor of Resource Planning for Otter Tail Power Company. In this position, she is responsible for the technical and financial analysis of energy and capacity resource alternatives. She also has responsibility for the preparation of the company’s 15-year integrated resource plan which is filed with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission every two years, and various other state, federal and power pool data reporting requirements relating to resources. Ms. Hebert is a registered mechanical engineer in Minnesota and received a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from North Dakota State University. She has been actively involved in the company’s wind monitoring projects in both North Dakota and Minnesota and was a member of the team that developed Otter Tail Power’s TailWinds green pricing program.

KEVIN KEPHART is the Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture and Biological Sciences and Director of the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station. His academic home is Professor in the Department of Plant Science at South Dakota State University. Kephart received a Ph.D. in crop production and physiology from Iowa State University in 1987. His dissertation research focused on solar radiation control on morphological and cell-wall development in cool-season and warm-season perennial grasses. Kephart also conducted research on morphological development of alfalfa and on forage quality of cicer milkvetch (Astragalus cicer L.). In 1982, he earned an M.S. degree from the University of Wyoming where his thesis research was on herbicide (glyphosate) carryover in no-till interseeded mountain meadows. He received a B.S. degree in soil science from Montana State University in 1979 and in 1980 was a research technician on a North Dakota State University surface mine reclamation project based in Mandan, ND.

The emphasis of Kephart's research includes physiological and ecological factors that affect nutritive quality and stress endurance of forages. Forage species emphasized in his work include yellow flowered alfalfa (Medicago sativa falcata L.), cicer milkvetch, and perennial cool- and warm-season grasses. He has conducted extensive research on novel uses of near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS). Kephart has led recent work on use of NIRS to analyze whole nonground grains for quality components. Successful calibration equations have been developed for corn, whole oats, soybeans, wheat, and forage grass seeds. Kephart has been involved in numerous collaborative research projects with crop breeders, and scientists in the Nutrition and Food Science and the Physics Departments.
From 1996 to 1998, Kephart served as co-coordinator for the SDSU Bolivia project. Faculty from SDSU have been assisting the Universidad Academica Campesina, Carmen Pampa with research and Extension projects since 1994. Kephart also has a keen personal interest in studying the history of crop introduction into the United States and the history of agriculture in the Northern Great Plains. The focus of this interest is on Niels E. Hansen, late Professor of Horticulture at SDSU and the first USDA plant explorer. Kephart has developed an extensive collection of documents related to Hansen and has conducted research at the National Archives.
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JOE KOLBACH Energy Maintenance Service, Inc.
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RONALD L. LEHR practices law and consults clients about energy and telecommunications regulation and business matters. Current assignments include work for a national laboratory, national trade organizations, and private firms on renewable energy and distributed resource strategies, commercialization, and collaboration. He also provides expert testimony in utility merger, anti-trust, and government claim litigation. He served for seven years as Chairman and Commissioner of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. He recently completed terms as an appointed member of a panel charged to make recommendations on electric industry restructuring to the Colorado General Assembly, and as President and Commissioner of the Denver Board of Water Commissioners, the water utility for Denver and surrounding suburban areas.

WARREN LOTSBERG was born in Chicago, Illinois. When he was in the second grade, his family moved to Buffalo, Minnesota, which is in the Minneapolis area, and that is where he grew up and graduated from high school. He served in the United States Navy and attended the University of Minnesota before getting into the outdoor advertising business. That business brought him to South Dakota in 1967 where he raised his family and has lived ever since. In 1980 Mr. Lotsberg joined Northwestern Public Service as Public Affairs director.

DON MARTINEZ received a degree in electrical engineering at New Mexico State
University. He worked in the electric utility industry for 20 years. Don joined Black Hills Power in 1988 where he worked for the Marketing & Energy Services Department. He is primarily responsible for commercial and industrial customer programs. He is also a technical resource on power quality issues, cogeneration projects, electric rate applications, energy management, & computer applications.

While working for Public Service Company of New Mexico, Don completed a research study on the performance of wind and photovoltaic systems (the systems were customer-owned and connected to the electric utility).

He was the Project Manager for a wind study by Black Hills Power completed in1995. BHP's project included collecting wind data at four (4) sites and evaluating the economics of wind generation.

BOB MILLER has been the executive director for the South Dakota Electric Utility Companies for eight years. Prior to his current duties, he was the executive director for the South Dakota Municipal League for twenty years. He claims to be married to the most tolerate wife in the world. They have two grown children.

DAVE MUNSON South Dakota Legislator

PAM NELSON currently serves as Vice Chair of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission. She was elected to the Commission in 1997, previously serving in the South Dakota House of Representatives from 1986 to 1988 and the South Dakota Senate from 1988 to 1994 where she was the Senate Majority Whip in 1993 –1994. Ms. Nelson was also Assistant Minority Leader in 1995-1996. She was a Sioux Falls School Board Member from 1976 to 1986. She is the vice chair of the NARUC committee on Consumer Affairs.

RANDY PARRY was raised on a farm near Canistota, South Dakota. Randy earned his degree in education and economics from the University of Sioux Falls in 1970. He taught business and computers in the Howard Public Schools from 1970-1995. He coached boys and girls basketball and was involved in many civic and community organizations. He was owner and operator of two businesses in Howard – Coach’s Corner and Howard Painting Services. Randy also served as the Rural Resource Director and Technology Coordinator in the Howard Schools from 1995- 1999. Randy and his wife Linda have two children.

In 1999 Randy agreed to become the Executive Director of Miner County Community Revitalization (MCCR) which is headquartered in Howard, South Dakota. MCCR spearheaded the development of a strategic plan for Miner County focused on three areas of development: economic development, capacity building, and life-long housing. In 2001 MCCR signed a 10-year partnership with the Northwest Area Foundation, becoming the first Community Ventures site under a new and innovative philanthropic direction set by the NWAF. In October, 2001, Howard became the first municipality in the state of South Dakota to own wind-powered electrical turbines. This was a collaborative economic development project of the City of Howard, MCCR and Energy Maintenance Services, Inc.

JEFF PETERS is director of marketing for Missouri River Services (MRES®), a joint action agency that provides energy and energy related services to 55 municipal electric utilities in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. He is responsible for developing and implementing programs to help members enhance their relationships with large retail customers. Jeff is also responsible for development of MRES strategy in wind energy.

Prior to this position, he served as the Agency’s Economist concentrating on load and cost forecasting, demand-side management, market research, integrated resource planning and program development. Jeff, a native of Wall, South Dakota, holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in business administration from the School of Business at the University of South Dakota.

GABRIEL PETLIN is policy analyst/senior outreach coordinator for the National Wind Coordinating Committee (NWCC) at RESOLVE. He identifies and communicates with stakeholders to access their needs and identify events or opportunities for the NWCC to work with individuals and stakeholders groups on wind energy issues. He assists as needed in design and facilitation of NWCC plenary meetings, regional forums, work group meetings and conference calls where wind policy and technical issues are discussed. Mr. Petlin conducts research and analysis of wind transmission issues, prepares materials on key wind topics for NWCC members to use in the regions, and assists with the management and facilitation of NWCC consensus documents. He maintains a calendar of wind-related regional events and arranges opportunities for NWCC members to attend regional events and share NWCC products and ideas. Mr. Petlin maintains an awareness of wind energy activity in the US and prepares outreach presentation materials describing the work of the NWCC.
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Prior to joining RESOLVE, Mr. Petlin served as an associate with CONCUR, Inc (Berkley, California), an environmental mediation firm specializing in natural resources and land use planning disputes. At CONCUR, he provided services in research, policy analysis, business development, and dispute resolution training. Mr. Petlin has worked in Mozambique, Paraguay and Mexico and speaks Spanish and Portuguese. Mr. Petlin received a Master of Arts in Urban and Environmental Policy from Tufts University and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He also received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California at Berkley in Conservation and Resource Studies.

RON REBENITSCH is Manager of Member Marketing, for Basin Electric Power Cooperative. He has worked for Basin for 25 years in construction, project management, design engineering, economic analysis and marketing. Ron graduated from North Dakota State University in 1974, with a degree in Civil Engineering. In addition to graduate studies in Environmental Engineering, he completed his MBA from the University of ND in 1995. Ron is licensed as a professional engineer in ND, Wyo and Colo.

MIKE ROPP is an associate professor of electrical engineering at South Dakota State University. A South Dakota native, he holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta, where his doctoral work included integration of renewable energy into utility grids. He is presently working in the area of distributed generation, particularly photovoltaics and windpower.

BETH SOHOLT is a Senior Energy Associate with the Izaak Walton League of America. Located in the Midwest Office in St. Paul, Minnesota, she works on renewable energy issues in the regulatory, legislative and regional transmission organization arenas for the League. Ms. Soholt, an attorney, has experience representing clean energy developers. She also worked for five years at Mid-Continent Area Power Pool (MAPP) where she served as staff to the MAPP Operating Committee. Ms. Soholt came to the League from the Minnesota State Senate where she served as a senior staff member to Senator Richard Cohen, chair of the State Government Finance Committee. Ms. Soholt is currently working on Wind On The Wires, a wind power and transmission project funded by The Energy Foundation and the McKnight Foundation. The goal of Wind On The Wires is to remove the barriers to bringing wind power to market. Wind On The Wires is focusing on three areas: technical, regulatory and education/outreach.
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RANDY UDALL has worked closely with a number of Colorado utilities to help them successfully develop three wind farms. He gave a keynote speech at the 1998 annual conference of the American Wind Energy Association, and has spoken at numerous wind conferences around the country. Holy Cross Energy, an electric cooperative utility with which Udall works, has purchased more wind power than any of the 930 rural utilities in America.

Udall will speak on the future of fossil fuels, and the critical importance of developing America's enormous and largely untapped reserves of wind power.

PAUL WHITE is President of the Project Resources Corporation. He has been actively involved with the wind power industry for the past ten years working closely with numerous wind turbine manufacturers, developers, and other suppliers to the wind industry.

Mr. White’s educational background includes a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Saint Olaf College and a Master of Science Degree in Technology, Energy and Environmental Planning from the University of Minnesota. During this time he worked on renewable energy policy and education.

In 1992 Mr. White began working with the Kern Wind Energy Association, and the American Wind Energy Association. In 1993, Mr. White began work for Wind World A/S in Skagen, Denmark, and moved on to Vestas-American Wind Technology, Inc. in charge of project sales. In this capacity, he directly managed the sales and installation of several wind energy projects. This work involved the coordination of wind resource analysis, project site development, project pricing, construction arrangements, and contracts management. During this period Mr. White worked closely with investors and lenders in the planning for projects.

In 1997 Mr. White started his own business, Project Resources Corporation, a wind farm development company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to develop projects throughout the Midwest. Project Resources Corporation’s work includes project feasibility studies, all aspects of project development, project construction and O&M activities. PRC provides services to client owned projects as well as their own projects.

Mr. White also acts as the Midwest Project Director for enXco, Inc., one of the fastest growing companies in wind energy and an industry leader. In this capacity he has developed projects throughout the Midwest including a 30 MW project in Peetz, Colorado and an 80 MW project near Chandler, Minnesota.

EDWARD WEBER has worked for Western Area Power Administration for over 20 years in the areas of system planning, engineering, and operations. He is presently the transmission system planning manager for the Upper Great Plains Region. Mr. Weber is very active in regional planning groups and has served on several committees of the Mid-continent Area Power Pool. He is presently serving as the Chairman of the North American Electric Reliability Council, Reliability Subcommittee. Mr. Weber has published numerous articles and papers on transmission planning and reliability. He is a senior member of IEEE and NSPE.

JIM WILCOX is presently Manager of Government and Regulatory Affairs for Xcel Energy in South Dakota. He is a native of Wakonda, South Dakota, and holds a BSEE degree from South Dakota State University and an MBA from St. Thomas University of St. Paul, Minnesota, He has had a long-standing interest in diverse methods of producing electricity. He has developed and delivered presentations to community service groups on solar power, nuclear power, wind power, and other energy issues. He is married to the former Doniese Deibert from Aberdeen and together they have three daughters.
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