Plant Management Institute

Site Manager, CCT Gas Operations

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

Kate has spent the last 20 years working for Tennessee Valley Authority honing her skills and knowledge in the policy procedures and power production and core business of the industry. She currently serves as site management in rotational development capacity for several power plants in the TVA network.

Plant Director, Harrington Station

Xcel Energy

Dennis Buchanan, PE, is a Plant Director for Southwestern Public Service Company (SPS). SPS is one of 4 operating companies of Xcel Energy. Dennis has worked in the Electric Utility, Power Generation field for over 40 years. His background includes performance and plant engineering, project management, and senior management. A large portion of his career was dedicated to power plant process controls where he designed and implemented DCS retrofits throughout the SPS fleet. Currently, Dennis is the Plant Director of the Harrington/Nichols complex that consists of 3 coal fired units and 3 gas fired units. Dennis has a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Texas Tech University and is a Professional Engineer in the State of Texas.

Plant Manager - Plant Scherer

Georgia Power

President

IEM Energy Consultants

Jeff Fassett, President & Co-Owner, IEM Energy Consultants, LLC Mr. Fassett is Co-owner and founder of IEM Energy Consultants LLC has more than 36 years of broad based experience in the power and related industries. He founded IEM in 1998 as a boutique consulting practice which provides consulting services in all aspects of power plant operations, maintenance, and management to clients worldwide. Mr. Fassett has provided services in outage planning, management and oversite, long range O&M budgeting, reliability assessments, and plant staffing analysis. In addition, he has also been involved in the negotiations of long-term service agreements representing over 30 GW of gas and steam turbine generating capacity worldwide and has testified as an expert witness regarding proper operations and maintenance practices and procedures. Under his guidance, IEM has experienced significant growth, and now employs almost 15 consultants. Prior to forming IEM, Mr. Fassett held roles of increasing responsibility with various utilities, both regulated and IPP’s, as well as petrochemical process facilities. These roles included Plant Engineer, Maintenance Engineer, Start Up Manager, Maintenance Manager and Plant Superintendent. His experience includes coal, simple and combined cycle CT’s and coal gasification. Mr. Fassett sits on the Board of Directors of the Plant Managers Institute, the Advisory Board of the Electric Power Conference, is a member of the ASME Power Committee, and International Gas Turbine Institute, Education Subcommittee. He has taught college classes in Energy & the Environment, Ethics in the Energy Industry, Electronics and Power Plant Operations. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from North Dakota State University with an emphasis in Power Plant System Design

Plant Manager - Wildcat Point Generation Facility

Old Dominion Electric Cooperative

Brian Heinbaugh has a B.S. Engineering Technology and two Master’s degrees, M.S. Management and Master of Business Administration. He has been in the Power Generation industry for over 25 years in a variety of O&M roles dealing with many different technologies. He has served as a Director of Operations with both GDF Suez and NAES over simple cycle, combined cycle, and coal plants. Currently he is a Plant Manager with ODEC at their new 1000 MW Combined Cycle Wildcat Point Generation Facility.

Manager

Dominion Energy/ Atlantic Coast Pipeline

Rizwan James  Director-Power Generation System Operation Joined Dominion Energy in 2004 as a combustion turbine technician at the Fairless Energy Power Plant. Through series of career advancements his new role is Director Power Generation System Operations. Rizwan James is responsible for providing fleetwide operational support to Power Generation assets which include regulated fleet asset management and budgetary oversight, regulatory reporting, and oversight of the PG Operational Excellence team. He is also responsible for leading Power Generation operations teams, leading Power Generation’s hydrogen strategy for combustion turbines, and providing support for Project Construction

Maintenance Manager

Southern Company

Plant Manager, Spurlock

East Kentucky Power Cooperative Inc. [EKPC]

Joe VonDerHaar has over 25 years experience split between the utility and manufacturing industries. On the utility side he has held positions in System Operations, Distribution and Generation. On the manufacturing front he was Plant Manager of Force Control Industries, a Power Transmission OEM. While in manufacturing he lived through the cultural and process changes required to become ISO9001:2000 certified. Joe is currently the Plant Manager at the Spurlock Power Station, a 4-unit, coal fired, 1356MW facility in Maysville Kentucky. He holds an electrical engineering degree from the University of Dayton. Joe and his wife Carla are proud parents of three sons.