TCPA LEADERSHIP

Officers

Bryan Sams – Calpine
President

Bryan is Vice President of Government and Regulatory Affairs for Calpine. He leads ERCOT market advocacy in Texas and is an accomplished electric industry veteran with experience across a variety of electric market segments including generators, retail electric providers, and investor owned utilities.

Immediately prior to joining Calpine, Bryan handled regulatory affairs for Lone Star Transmission in Texas. Bryan was also at NRG Energy (NRG) for more than a dozen years, where he worked on a wide range of wholesale and retail legislative and regulatory issues. He began his career in the Commercial Operation division of American Electric Power in Columbus Ohio.

Bryan holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin Graduate College of Engineering with a focus in Energy Policy and Finance and Bachelor of Arts from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio.

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Bryan has direct business and policy experience relating to numerous PUCT activities including rulemaking, contested cases and compliance matters. At ERCOT, Bryan has had leadership roles with a number committees including in the Real Time Co-optimization Task Force, Supply Analysis Working Group and has been an elected member of the Technical Advisory Committee, Wholesale Market Subcommittee, Protocol Revision Subcommittee and Retail Market Subcommittee.

Casey Kelley – Constellation
Vice President

Casey is Director, State Government Affairs for Constellation, supporting the western and southern U.S. and the Canadian Province of Alberta. He monitors and supports state policy initiatives before various legislative and regulatory entities in the region including Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Alabama, Kansas, and Utah. Casey served in similar roles for nearly a decade at Exelon Corporation prior to the company separation of Exelon and Constellation. Casey has actively participated, or held leadership roles, in multiple trade organizations in Texas, including the Alliance for Retail Markets, Texas Energy Association of Marketers, Texas Competitive Power Advocates, Advanced Power Alliance, and the Association of Electric Companies of Texas.

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Before joining Exelon, Casey served as Chief of Staff/District Director/Legislative Aide to a Texas House of Representatives and Texas Senate member for six years. He also served as Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs for ORYXE Energy International, with a focus on regulatory matters before the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and legislative issues before the Texas legislature. Through this role, he was also active in the Texas Oil and Gas Association. In addition, Casey supported regulatory efforts in California before the California Air Resources Board, and he supported the sales team across the United States.

Casey holds a Master of Public Affairs degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and a Bachelor of Science in Communications degree from Abilene Christian University. He serves as the Chair of the Giving Committee on the LBJ Alumni Board and as a board member of the Austin Steam Train Association.

Resmi Surendran – Shell
Treasurer

Resmi Surendran is the Senior Director of Regulatory Policy at Shell Energy North America, where she is responsible for developing and executing regulatory advocacy strategies, representing Shell at the ERCOT/PUC and monitoring market developments at SPP and MISO.Before Joining Shell in 2017, she was with ERCOT for 14 years, where she was responsible for operation and design of Real-Time/Day-Ahead/CRR markets. She has been actively involved with stakeholders in design and implementation of ERCOT nodal market.

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Before nodal market implementation, she was responsible for supporting system operations, conducting reliability studies and coordinating operations and planning. Her research interests include electricity market regulation and pricing policies, competitive electricity markets design with non-traditional resources, and impact of market policies on power system operations. She is a strong believer of giving back to the community and empowering women to achieve their full potential. As an active member Gulf Cost Power Association’s emPOWERing women’s leadership committee, she is involved in organizing leadership conferences, establishing women’s mentoring circles, coordinating volunteer activities, setting up networking events, and developing newsletters. She lives in Round Rock with her husband, Ram, and their two wonderful boys, Rishi and Raj.

Delette J. Marengo – Tenaska
Secretary

As Vice President of public & government affairs, Delette J. Marengo oversees government, regulatory, public and community relations strategy for Tenaska and affiliates in 12 states. Tenaska is one of the largest privately held, independent energy companies in the United States, with a proven record of success in power plant development, finance, construction management, operation and asset management. Tenaska affiliates also provide energy risk management services and are involved in asset acquisition and management; natural gas and electric power marketing; fuel supply; natural gas exploration, production and transportation systems; and electric transmission development.

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Ms. Marengo is active with a number of industry trade organizations and a member of the American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL) and California Women in Energy.

Prior to joining Tenaska, Ms. Marengo worked as U.S. Director of Public Affairs for Trina Solar and Director of Public Affairs for Edison International. She has more than 20 years of legislative experience, including serving as Special Advisor and Chief Deputy Appointments Secretary to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to the Assembly Republican Leader of the California Legislature and as Director of Member Services & Minority Consultants at the California State Legislature.

Ms. Marengo earned an Executive MBA (EMBA) from the University of Nebraska, Omaha and a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in Government from California State University in Sacramento, California.

TCPA LEADERSHIP

Board

Bill Barnes – NRG
Board Member

Bill is Senior Director of Regulatory Affairs for NRG located in Austin. He is responsible for covering ERCOT market design issues for the retail and wholesale markets, providing market analysis, commercial advice, and regulatory advocacy. Bill represents NRG at ERCOT and the PUCT and has served as an elected member of the Technical Advisory Committee, Wholesale Market Subcommittee, and Protocol Revision Subcommittee in the ERCOT stakeholder process. Bill has over 20 years of experience in the U.S. power industry.

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Prior to joining NRG, Bill was a Vice President in US Power Trading at J Aron & Company, the commodities trading subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. During his 5 years at Goldman, he was responsible for commodity trading strategies, managing various power generation assets, conducting power market design and policy research, and providing strategic commercial advice on power deals.

Before joining Goldman Sachs, Bill was the Manager of Market Settlements at ERCOT. While at ERCOT, he spent over 7 years managing, designing, and maintaining the commercial aspects of the ERCOT nodal power market. Bill began his career at Accenture working on competitive retail markets and ISO market development.

Bill earned a Masters of Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelors of Chemical Engineering from the University of Dayton.

Ned Bonskowski – Vistra
Board Member

Ned Bonskowski is Vice President of Texas Regulatory Policy with Vistra Corp. Ned provides regulatory representation for the Vistra Corp. family of companies, including Luminant, TXU Energy, Ambit Energy, 4Change Energy, Express Energy, Veteran Energy, and TriEagle Energy before the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), ERCOT, and other venues.

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Ned joined TXU Energy in 2008 and held various public policy and finance/accounting roles before moving to the parent company’s regulatory policy group in 2014. Ned is an active participant in leading industry trade associations including the Alliance for Retail Markets (ARM), the Association of Electric Companies of Texas (AECT), and Texas Competitive Power Advocates (TCPA).

Prior to joining the company in 2008, Ned received his Master of Arts degree in Economics from McGill University and his Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Economics with a minor in Personal Financial Planning from the University of North Texas.

Daniel Booth – TexGen
Board Member

Daniel Booth is the Chief Operating Officer of TexGen Power. He is responsible for overall company operations, including commercial operations and optimization, plant operations, investor relations, and legal/regulatory compliance and management. Before joining TexGen, Daniel worked at Calpine in a variety of operational and legal/regulatory roles.

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Daniel has a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and a law degree from Harvard Law School. He started his career in patent litigation before transitioning to the power industry in early 2010. He’s had a variety of legal and commercial/operations roles in both the wholesale and retail power space, both in Texas and in all of other major organized U.S. power markets.

Kevin Bunch – EDF Energy North America
Board Member

Kevin Bunch is Manager of Reliability Compliance for EDF Trading North America, LLC. He is responsible for overseeing EDF’s operational and IT compliance activities and for development of EDF’s compliance policies and procedures applicable to ERCOT and NERC.

Mr. Bunch has managed NERC and ERCOT compliance for more than 10 years, in a variety of roles. Mr. Bunch started his career with ERCOT and worked as a NERC compliance auditor for the Texas Reliability Entity. Prior to joining EDF, Mr. Bunch developed and implemented NERC compliance programs for an independent generator.

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Mr. Bunch is the immediate past chair of the ERCOT Reliability and Operations Subcommittee. He also served on the ERCOT Technical Advisory Committee and the ERCOT Wholesale Market Subcommittee.

Mr. Bunch received his Bachelor of Science in software engineering from The University of Advancing Technology.

Elena deLaunay – Rockland Capital
Board Member

Mollie Lacek – Talen Energy
Board Member

Mollie Lacek serves as Senior Regulatory Policy Manager for Talen Energy. In this position, she monitors regulatory, policy and market developments within the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (“ERCOT”) and collaborates with key internal and external stakeholders to support the company’s operations, commercial and external affairs efforts.

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Mollie has over a decade of experience in the energy industry. Prior to her current role, she served as Manager Pipeline Logistics for UGI Energy Services, LLC, where she led a team responsible for coordinating natural gas nominations for the company’s retail and wholesale customers behind 20 interstate and 7 midstream pipeline assets. During her tenure with UGI Utilities, Inc, she held positions of progressively greater responsibility where she managed natural gas supply scheduling, capacity releases and third-party supplier delivery confirmations, to balance supply and demand on UGI’s distribution system. Prior to these roles, Mollie also held positions with Talen Energy Corporation and its predecessor company, PPL Corporation, where she negotiated retail electric and retail gas contracts with counterparties, coordinated regulatory filings, and served as a liaison with other areas of the business including commercial, risk, credit, insurance, tax and legal to minimize exposure, drive value and ensure regulatory compliance.

Ms. Lacek holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. and a Master of Business Administration from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa.

Tina Lee – WattBridge
Board Member

Tina Lee joined WattBridge in April 2021 as Vice President of Asset Management to manage the commercial operations of WattBridge’s portfolio. She brings over twenty years of experience managing 6,300 MW of natural gas plants for private equity owners while at Recurve Energy Asset Management and KGen Power across markets including California, Desert Southwest, Southeast, NYISO, PJM, and ISO-NE.

Ms. Lee has a Finance MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and a Finance BBA and BA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dan Pierpont – Cogentrix
Board Member

As the Vice President, Regulatory Affairs for Cogentrix, Mr. Pierpont is responsible for developing and executing market and regulatory strategy across all of the regions in which Carlyle’s fleet operates. Dan has 25 years of experience in the energy industry, with experience from early stage opportunity identification to complex regulatory analysis and advocacy.

Mr. Pierpont holds a Master of Science Degree from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Tufts University.

TCPA LEADERSHIP

Staff

Michele Richmond
Executive Director
michele@competitivepower.org

Michele Richmond is the Executive Director for the Texas Competitive Power Advocates (TCPA), a non-profit trade association that is dedicated to helping ensure a successful energy future for Texas by investing in and operating clean and diversified energy sources to ensure ample, reliable and affordable electricity for Texas consumers.

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Prior to joining TCPA, Mrs. Richmond spent nearly eight years as the Director of External Relations for the Office of Public Utility Counsel (OPUC), a state agency that represents the interests of residential and small commercial utility consumers. At OPUC, she concentrated her work on intergovernmental relations, legislative relations, communications, outreach and stakeholder collaboration.

Michele has over 20 years in the legislative arena. Her career includes nearly a decade as the Director of Legislative and Political Affairs for a statewide trade association as well as lobbying for a statewide education association. She specialized in tax and finance legislation and also directed the association’s political action committee, grassroots and election activities. Michele also lobbied on school finance and governance issues for several years. Mrs. Richmond began her career in the Texas House of Representatives, serving four years as the Chief of Staff and Legislative Director for a Houston representative.

Mrs. Richmond received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin. She has served on Government Relations Committees for state and national associations. She served from 2015 through 2018 on the Board of Directors for the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative, a national non-profit organization that advances the consumer-driven market for services and technologies enabled by smart grid. Mrs. Richmond lives in a competitive retail electric area north of Austin with her family.

Paul Townsend
Director of Communications and Administration
paul@competitivepower.org

Paul Townsend is the Director of Communications and Administration for the Texas Competitive Power Advocates (TPCA), a non-profit trade association that is dedicated to helping ensure a successful energy future for Texas by investing in and operating diversified energy sources to ensure ample, reliable and affordable electricity for Texas consumers.

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Before joining TCPA, Mr. Townsend worked in and around the Texas Legislature for over a decade. In total, Mr. Townsend worked for five members of the Texas House of Representatives and Texas Senate, helping to shape state policy and craft the state’s budget. He also worked as the Director of Public Policy for a statewide trade association and as an attorney for two state agencies. Throughout his career, Mr. Townsend has deftly navigated the legislative process, coordinated advocacy strategies, and guided effective communications.

Mr. Townsend received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Louisiana State University and his Juris Doctorate from St. Mary’s University School of Law. He resides in Dallas with his wife, Linda, twin daughters, Amelia and Isabel, and their three dogs.