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About the 2012 Judges
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Mr. Bayless retired as Provost of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in 2005, Prior to December 27, 1999 Mr. Bayless was Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Illinova Corporation, and its' wholly owned subsidiary, Illinois Power Company, an electric and natural gas utility with more than half a million customers and approximately 4,500 megawatts of electricity generating capacity.
Prior to joining Illinova Corporation in June 1998, Mr. Bayless was Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Tucson Electric Power Company (UniSource Energy), from 1981 to 1989 Mr. Bayless was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Public Service Company of New Hampshire. Before that, he was employed by Consumers Power Company in Jackson, Michigan, first as an attorney, then as the Director of Nuclear Fuel Supply, and finally as the Director of Special Corporate Projects. Prior to that Mr. Bayless had summer jobs in line construction and at power plants at Kentucky Power and Pennsylvania Power and Light.
Mr. Bayless received his BSEE from West Virginia Institute of Technology in 1968. In 1971, he earned his MSEE, in power engineering, and in 1972 his law Degree, both from West Virginia University. He earned his MBA in 1977 from the Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Michigan.
Mr. Bayless is a Board Member of and Chairman of North American Energy Alliance, an IPP. A Board Member and Chair of the Audit Committee as Pike Electric and a Board Member e3Greentech and the West Virginia American Water Company. He is past Chairman of the Board of Independent Wireless One, a past Board Member and Chairman of the Audit Committee at Patina Oil and Gas, a past Board Member of Dynegy, where, he has been Chairman of the Audit Committee and of the Governance and Nominating Committee and a past Board Member of Trigen Energy Inc., Ontario Power Authority and Recycled Energy Development, He is on the Board of Advisors at the Angeleno Group.
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Paul Browning was employed by Exxon/ExxonMobil for 43 years, working primarily in the international supply, transportation, refining optimization, and crude oil trading segments of the business. There he developed expertise in the global crude oil markets, international marine transportation, refinery crude slate optimization, global supply/demand fundamentals, and energy policy issues. Paul's last position with ExxonMobil was as Manager of International Crude Trading, and Vice President/Director of ExxonMobil Sales and Supply, LLC.
Prior to that, he held management positions in a variety of areas within Exxon. On the commercial side, he was initially a crude and product trader but moved on to manage a market analysis group, then the North Sea crude trading operation, and ultimately, all international crude trading for Exxon and then ExxonMobil. In the transportation area, Paul managed Exxon International's vessel scheduling operations and then the vessel chartering activity which included chartering for Exxon's own needs, out-chartering surplus tonnage, and also selling surplus vessels during a time of significant reduction in Exxon’s fleet.
Paul's knowledge of the refining side of the business was acquired initially as a contact engineer at the Bayway Refinery in New Jersey, moving on to the short-range economics group, and working as the crude and asphalt coordinator. After moving to company headquarters, he later managed Exxon's European refining optimization efforts for 10 refineries, responsible for developing operating targets, optimum crude slates, product supply sales and inventory management strategies.
Paul's experience in strategic planning included assignments in the energy policy area in the Corporate Planning Department in the 1970's during a period of great unrest in the oil markets brought on by the Arab Oil Embargo.
A graduate of West Virginia University, with a chemical engineering degree, Paul has worked primarily in the New York/New Jersey area and then in Northern Virginia.
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Roger Duncan is a research assistant at the University of Texas at Austin. Roger is also the former General Manager of Austin Energy, the municipal utility for Austin, Texas. It is the 9th largest public power utility and has been recognized as a leader in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and smart grid activities. Prior to that position, Roger served in various executive roles for Austin Energy and the City of Austin, with management over government relations, water and air quality, sustainability and various environmental initiatives. Roger was elected twice to the Austin City Council from 1981 to 1985. Roger serves on the Board of Directors of the Alliance to Save Energy, and is President of the Pecan Street Project, an Austin smart grid initiative. Roger also served on the Electric Advisory Committee for the Department of Energy. In 2005, Business Week magazine recognized Roger as one of the top 20 carbon reducers in the world. Roger has a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin with a major in philosophy.
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AAfter serving four terms in the United States House of Representatives representing the 14th Congressional District of Texas, Mr. Laughlin has been in private practice focusing on public policy, energy, international trade and tax law.
As a member of Congress, he served on the Committee on Ways and Means, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (where he served on the Subcommittees on Aviation, Surface Transportation and Water) and the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. The legislation Mr. Laughlin worked on as a member of Congress included the Intermodal Transportation Safety and Efficiency Act, Pipeline Safety, Deep Water Royalty Relief Act, Oil Pollution Act of 1990, Private Property Protection Act and the Military Reserve Revitalization Act of 1995.
Mr. Laughlin was founder and co chair of the U.S./Former Soviet Union Energy Caucus and helped initiate the Duma-Congress meetings to better understand and resolve problems involving oil and gas development confronting U.S. oil companies operating in Russia. During his Congressional career, he undertook many energy and economic development missions to Russia and the Central Asian republics, including Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.
A colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, Mr. Laughlin was the only member of the U.S. Congress to see active duty during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. While on active duty, he was stationed at Sinop, Turkey during 1968-69. Mr. Laughlin retired as a Colonel from the U.S. Army Reserves in 1998.
Prior to his election to Congress in 1988, Mr. Laughlin practiced law in Texas. He also served as assistant district attorney for Houston, Harris County, Texas, for four years.
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Bjarne Moe has been involved with the oil and gas sector for 35 years, for Norway's Ministry of Petroleum and Energy most of that time. He has, however, also worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served as a diplomat. In 1988, Moe was appointed director general with responsibility for the oil and gas sector. Later he was for several years responsible for the Norwegian government’s investments in the oil and gas sector. In addition, Moe has lectured at a college and has served as chairman and as a member of numerous committees concerned with activities in the industry. He has also chaired several bilateral commissions involving other countries. Moe holds a degree in statistics and economics and a degree in economics from the University of Oslo.
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Khunying Thongtip Ratanarat Member of PTIT Foundation Board & Council of Trusteers, Honorary Doctorate, Applied Geophysics, Chiang Mai University, Thailand; M.E., Chemical Engineering, B.E., Chemical Engineering, B.Sc., Chemistry (minor in Economics), University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Khunying Thongtip Ratanarat is now the member of Petroleum Institute of Thailand (PTIT) Foundation Board & Council of Trustees after her term as Executive Director expired. PTIT is an independent organization established under a non-profit foundation to help strengthen the development of Thailand’s petroleum, petrochemical and related industries in human resource development, information service, technical service, and policy and regulatory issues.
Khunying Thongtip writes and directs PTIT training courses on oil and gas and petrochemicals economics. She has also been invited to give lectures and briefings on petroleum and petrochemicals to several organizations, public and private, as well as academic institutions. In 2005, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the University of Chiang Mai for Applied Geophysics.
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Michael Shepard is president, CEO and a co-founder of E SOURCE, a Boulder, Colorado based firm that promotes more efficient and environmentally sensitive use and production of energy. E Source has provided technical and business intelligence to hundreds of electric and gas utilities, Fortune 500 corporate energy managers, government agencies, and other players in the energy sector since 1987. The company’s utility clients provide about three-quarters of the electricity and natural gas delivered in the U.S. and Canada. The firm provides workflow tools, research and advisory support, and client access to its experts in practice areas focused near the customer meter: assessing the latest in energy efficient technology, demand-side management program design and delivery, and best practices in such utility functional areas as marketing, social media, customer care, account management, and communications. E Source also works directly with large energy users to help them improve their energy and emissions management programs.
He speaks frequently at industry events and has published over one hundred papers and books on topics ranging from ultra-efficient drivepower and lighting systems, to innovative financing schemes for energy conversation, to profitable strategies for companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. He serves on the advisory board for Avista Utilities energy-efficiency program and chairs the board of the Institute for Social and Environmental Transition, an international development organization focused on innovative energy and resource solutions for developing economies. Prior to co-founding E Source, he directed the energy program at Rocky Mountain Institute, and worked at the Electric Power Research Institute and the New Mexico Solar Energy Association. Earlier in his career, Shepard worked with British economist and author E.F. Schumacher, author of the classic work Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered. He holds a B.S. with distinction in natural resource conservation from Cornell University, and a Masters in Energy and Resources from the University of California at Berkeley.
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Clare is non-executive director of a number of companies. These include Energy Solutions (specializing in Nuclear Waste) where she is also Chairman of their European Business and of Magnox, the UK business which operates 2 nuclear generating sites and is decommissioning a further 8 sites), Gas Strategies (Chairman), G4S, a FTSE100 company. She has recently come off the Tullow Oil and British energy board (where she was Deputy Chairman). Clare has been one of the five members of the Independent Commission on Banking, set up by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to advise the Government on what measures to introduce to protect against future crises. This was reported in September 2011 and should impact not only the UK's response to the financial sector, but potentially have an influence actions globally.
Clare is best known for her work as the UK's Gas Regulator between 1993 and 1998. She spear-headed the world's first introduction of choice and competition all the way down to the domestic level in the gas industry, and this experience is now enabling other countries and other industries to emulate what has been done in the UK in ways appropriate to their own particular circumstances.
Following on from a degree in Mathematics and Economics at Clare College Cambridge, and then a Mellon fellow scholarship to do an M.Phil in economics at Yale University, Clare started her career as a Civil Servant in H.M. Treasury, before becoming an entrepreneur, first in importing business, and then as the founder of a software house specializing in vertical market software for business. She is the author of two computer books, and editor of two others, all of which were translated into Spanish. She also has an honorary Doctorate from Brunel University, and was honored in the 1999 New Year's Honours with a CBE for services to the gas industry.