Energy Jobs: Former FERC Commissioner McIntyre Dies; New Tesla Board; Moves at Bloom and More

We start out the first Energy Jobs update of 2019 on a somber note.

Kevin McIntyre, who resigned from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October due to health issues, died last week. President Trump named Neil Chatterjee as chairman of FERC upon McIntyre’s resignation. McIntyre co-led the global energy practice at Jones Day, where he was for nearly 30 years, according to E&E News. He is survived by his wife and three children.

As reported here, there and everywhere, Tesla added Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Walgreens’ Kathleen Wilson-Thompson to its board of directors, as part of the terms of its settlement with the SEC, effective December 27. (For more on the new board, read more from Eric Wesoff.)

John Jung has stepped down as president and CEO of Greensmith Energy after nearly a decade. Wärtsilä acquired Greensmith in 2017 for an undisclosed amount. His new venture is named Grid Function, which wants to (drumroll, please), "improve your grid function," according to the website. More on that to come.

Bloom Energy has a new VP of regulatory, Pat McCormick. He was most recently chief counsel for the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the U.S. Senate and was a partner and lead of the regulated markets and energy infrastructure practice of Hunton & Williams (now Hunton Andrews Kurth).

In a steady drumbeat of EVgo additions, Lars Peters has joined as director of business development. He was most recently senior adviser for zero-emissions vehicles for San Francisco.

In another stream of additions, Colin Lamb has joined Utilidata as VP of business development. He spent the last six years at Xcel Energy in product development. Marissa Hummon also joined Utilidata last fall as CTO, moving on from Tendril. Jess Melanson also left Tendril last fall to join Utilidata as president and COO.

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Among its many active searches, Quantal has been engaged to find an IT infrastructure manager for a utility.

The client is seeking a talented individual to join the team as a Product Marketing Manager. In this role, you will be responsible for the product positioning and messaging for our industry-leading distributed energy resource management platform for utilities. From determining positioning and naming, to conducting competitive analysis and externally communicating product benefits, you will help shape the voice of the product and help grow our customer base. You’ll work with a cross-functional team across sales, corporate marketing, product development, and engineering to match the features of EnergyHub’s products with client needs in order to drive sales.

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Liza Knutsson is now director of marketing for LS Energy Solutions after nearly 14 years with Parker Hannifin, where she served most recently as product marketing manager for the Energy Grid Tie division.

Julia Hamm, co-chair of the Smart Electric Power Alliance, and Cris Eugster, COO of CPS Energy, are now co-chairs of the PREPA Transformation Advisory Council. The moves come as David Owens, Charles Bayless and Robert Poe have been appointed to PREPA’s board. (For more on the future of Puerto Rico’s power supply and grid, click here.)

Lisa Troglia is now commercial group program manager at Enphase Energy. Previously, she spent more than six years at Tesla, where she was a sales operations program manager; she was with SolarCity prior to that.

NextEra Energy Partners has elected Robert Byrne to its board of directors, Byrne replaces James Suciu, who is resigning from the board to rejoin GE as commercial VP at GE Gas Power. Suciu had been with GE for nearly 35 years before retiring in 2017.

After leading the U.S. DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy in an informal capacity for more than a year, Daniel Simmons was confirmed as the Assistant Secretary of Energy, a role in which he will formally head up EERE. A Washington Post report from 2017 notes Simmons’ long history of questioning the role of renewable energy in the U.S. energy mix.