North American Energy Standards Board

North American Energy Standards Board

801 Travis, Suite 1675, Houston, Texas 77002

Phone: (713) 356-0060, Fax: (713) 356-0067, E-mail: naesb@naesb.org

Home Page: www.naesb.org

Gerry W. Cauley was named President and Chief Executive Officer of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) in November 2009 and assumed the role in January 2010. Mr. Cauley is responsible for overseeing NERC’s mission to ensure the reliability of the North American bulk power system. As President and CEO, Mr. Cauley leads key programs affecting over 1900 bulk power system owners, operators, and users, including standards and training, critical infrastructure, risk analysis, compliance monitoring, enforcement, situation awareness, reliability assessment, and government relations. Mr. Cauley also oversees the operation of eight regional entities engaged in implementation of delegated responsibilities. From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Cauley served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the SERC Reliability Corporation, a reliability region covering 16 states in the southeastern and central United States. During this time he established new programs for monitoring and enforcing compliance with mandatory standards, developed training and educational programs, and a program to track reliability recommendations. Prior to his CEO career, Mr. Cauley served as Vice President and Director of Standards at NERC and was instrumental in preparing NERC’s application to become the ERO. He spearheaded the development of an initial set of standards to ensure the reliability of the bulk power system in North America. Mr. Cauley was also a lead investigator of the August 2003 Northeast blackout and coordinated the NERC Y2k program, supervising the reporting and readiness of 3,100 electric organizations in the United States and Canada. Additionally, Mr. Cauley has served in various positions of leadership during his career, including program manager of grid operations and planning at the Electric Power Research Institute, training consultant for electric system operations, nuclear and fossil plant operations, substations, and distribution. He also served as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Mr. Cauley has a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a master’s degree from the University of Maryland in nuclear engineering, and a master’s degree in business administration from Loyola College - Baltimore. Mr. Cauley is a registered Professional Engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Annie McIntyre is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Ardua Strategies, Inc., a Texas Corporation, providing solutions for the cyber and operational security issues of energy and infrastructure. She is also a Senior Fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Technology Leadership Institute. Prior to founding Ardua Strategies, Ms. McIntyre was a Principal Member of Technical Staff and Program Manager at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her research areas at Sandia included threats, vulnerabilities, and protection of critical infrastructure systems, and cyber security for fossil and renewable energy systems. She managed the Sandia-Forest City Strategic Partnership program for sustainability, and participated in programs such as the Institute for Infrastructure Information Protection (I3P), and National SCADA Test Bed. Ms. McIntyre conducted the first cyber analysis of a renewable system in 2007 for the Department of Energy. Prior to work in critical infrastructure, Ms. McIntyre worked extensively in the defense sector on information warfare and survivability, serving as IO Laboratory Chief and Information Warfare Lead for Future Combat Systems Assessments at the Army Research Laboratory. She previously served as New Mexico Regional Manager for Concurrent Technologies Corporation, a defense and energy contractor, and performed systems analysis and engineering in the bioinformatics field for Molecular Informatics, Inc. Ms. McIntyre conducts extensive work on cyber policies as they relate to energy and infrastructure, and enjoys a close relationship with the American Petroleum Institute and the North American Energy Standards Board. She maintains strong ties with customers at the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as across industry. She holds a Bachelor of Science from New Mexico Tech, a Master of Science from Troy State University, and has been a lifelong member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

Former Department of Energy (DOE) official Emil Peña is the executive director of Rice's Energy and Environmental Systems Institute. A Texas native, Peña joined Rice Oct. 15 following a stint as the DOE's deputy assistant secretary of natural gas and petroleum technology. While there he was responsible for administering oil and gas programs, including research and development, planning and environmental analysis, and import and export activities. Prior to his DOE appointment in 2000, Peña owned and operated a Houston-based lobbying firm for 15 years, representing clients from Louisiana to New Mexico. Prior to that, Peña served as assistant director of public affairs for field operations at Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), where he represented the company before state and local government bodies, elected officials and industry associations in an 11-state region. Peña has also worked in government, community and public affairs for several firms, including Miller Brewing Company and LoVaca Gathering Company. Peña holds a master's in environmental management from the University of Texas at San Antonio and a bachelor's in political science, history and sociology from Texas A&I University in Kingsville. He also attended the School of Law at St. Mary's University, San Antonio, and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Peña's ties to Rice are lengthy. He's been involved for a number of years with the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship and is a long-time acquaintance of Ray Martinez, Rice's new director of governmental relations. Peña's professional and civic activities include the Texas Oil and Gas Association, Latin American Management Association Board, U.S. Latino Coalition board, U.S. Mexico Chamber of Commerce board and Upper Kirby Tax Reinvestment Zone No. 19 Board. He was also a member of the National Petroleum Council. He serves on the boards of directors of CORRPRO Company, GCCTT, the GenOil Co. advisory board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Methane 2 Markets Program.

Timothy Alan Simon was appointed to the California Public Utilities Commission by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on February 15, 2007.  As a former securities and banking industry attorney involved in financial products and services, Commissioner Simon firmly supports investment in California’s utility infrastructure as being critical to California’s economic future, and encourages a balanced public policy in areas of utility regulation.  He actively promotes and encourages diversity in utility procurement, educational opportunities, and the workplace. On the national level, Commissioner Simon is Chair of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) Committee on Natural Gas.  He also is a member of NARUC's Board of Directors, Critical Infrastructure Committee, Consumer Affairs Committee, Utility Market Access Partnership Sub-committee, Gas Speculation Task Force, and Wireless Task Force.  In his role as NARUC Gas Committee Chair, Commissioner Simon also sits on the National Petroleum Council, an oil and gas advisory committee to the Secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE).  Commissioner Simon is a member of the First Friday Caucus, a national educational group on competitive utility markets, the Annual Baseline Assessment of Choice in Canada and the United States (ABACCUS) reporting committee, and the former Chair of the Liquefied Natural Gas Partnership between NARUC and DOE. At the state level, Commissioner Simon is a member of the Berkeley Energy & Resources Collaborative at U.C. Berkeley, and the California Green Collar Jobs Council.  Prior to joining the CPUC, Commissioner Simon served as the Appointments Secretary to Governor Schwarzenegger, the first African American in California history to hold that post.  Commissioner Simon received a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of San Francisco, and a Juris Doctor from Hastings College of the Law, University of California.  He currently is an adjunct professor of Securities Regulations at the Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco, and acts as an advisor on international securities in Golden Gate’s U.S. Legal Studies Program. As an active member of the Bay Area community, Commissioner Simon serves on several non-profit boards, including the Saint Ignatius College Preparatory Board of Regents, Catholic Charities/CYO of the San Francisco Bay Area and the Megan Furth Catholic Academy.  He is engaged and is the proud father of three children and one grandchild. 

Marc L. Spitzer is a partner in Steptoe's Washington and Phoenix offices, where he is a member of the Regulatory & Industry Affairs Department. Mr. Spitzer served as a Commissioner on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from July, 2006 to December, 2011. At the FERC, Mr. Spitzer participated in Commission technical conferences, initiatives, and proceedings, including 2005 Energy Policy Act and other rulemakings, rate, enforcement and reliability cases, electric transmission policy, natural gas infrastructure, and oil pipeline matters. In 2002 he was elected chairman of the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) by his colleagues. As Chairman of the ACC, he focused on policies that encouraged the expansion of natural gas infrastructure, specifically distribution and storage; creating a demand side management policy; enhancing the ACC’s renewables standard; and advancing consumer privacy concerns in telecommunications. In 1992, he was elected to the Arizona State Senate for District 18. Mr. Spitzer also served in the Legislature as Chair of the Judiciary and Finance Committees and was elected by his peers to the position of Senate Majority Leader in 1996. As an attorney since 1982, Mr. Spitzer has represented public companies and private entities in disputes with Internal Revenue Service before IRS Audit and Appellate Divisions and United States Tax Court.

Christine Tezak, Managing Director - Research, ClearView Energy Partners, LLC

Pat Wood, III, an energy infrastructure developer based in Houston, has a long career in energy. Pat Wood is the past Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and of the Public Utility Commission of Texas. In his regulatory career in the natural gas, transportation, telecommunications and electric power industries, Wood was a forceful advocate for replacing government-centered energy regulation with competition. Pat Wood believes that robust infrastructure is essential for energy markets to work well, so today his project development focus is on clean power generation, independent power transmission and natural gas facilities. Mr. Wood led a successful effort with Sharyland Utilities and Irish wind developer Airtricity to build power transmission into the Texas Panhandle to attach 10,000 MW of new generation resources. He remains involved with Sharyland/Hunt Transmission in the development of infrastructure. Wood also serves as a strategic advisor to Natural Gas Partners, a private equity firm, and is an independent director of five infrastructure companies: SunPower, Quanta Services, Xtreme Power Solutions, TPI Composites, and FirstWind. Mr. Wood serves as the non-executive chairman of the board of directors of Dynegy, Inc. since October 2012. Mr. Wood previously served as a director of First Wind Holdings Inc. from 2010 to June 2012. He is a member of the National Petroleum Council and is on the Board of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE). Under Governor George W. Bush, Pat Wood chaired the Public Utility Commission of Texas, which introduced competition to the wholesale and retail electric power industries. The restructured Texas electric market is considered to be the most robustly competitive energy market in the country with over three-fourths of customers choosing competitively provided service, and over $31 billion invested in new power infrastructure since the Texas restructuring law was passed in 1999, including over 9,000 MW of new renewable energy. During his four years at the helm of the FERC, Pat Wood led the response to the 2000-2001 California energy crisis, the bankruptcy of Enron, the significant rise in fuel prices and the 2003 Northeastern power blackout. In doing so, he promoted the development of a cleaner, more competitive power generation fleet, liquefied natural gas terminals, and a more robust power transmission grid, all in the context of well-ordered competitive energy markets. Pat Wood holds degrees from Texas A&M University (civil engineering) and Harvard Law School.