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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 of the Ontario Power Authority, 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. 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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After 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 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 tools, research, 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, climate change policy and strategy, 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 procurement and energy and emissions management programs.
In addition to his general executive role in the company, Mr. Shepard oversees the firm's new product development activities, with particular expertise in DSM programs, energy-efficient technology, emissions markets and climate change. 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 is currently bringing to market a new software platform which taps geodemographic segmentation techniques to help utilities identify and micro-target those customers most likely to participate in and benefit from energy efficiency programs. 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.
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Michael Webber is the Associate Director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy in the Jackson School of Geosciences, Co-Director of the Clean Energy Incubator at the Austin Technology Incubator, and Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, where he trains a new generation of energy leaders through research and education at the intersection of engineering, policy, and commercialization. He has authored more than 125 scientific articles, columns, books and book chapters, including a compendium of his commentary titled "Changing the Way America Thinks About Energy", which was published in May 2009. A highly sought public speaker, he has given more than 150 lectures, speeches, and invited talks in the last few years, including testimonies for hearings of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, keynotes for scientific conferences, lectures at the United Nations, and briefings for chief executives at some of the nation’s leading companies. Michael is on the board of advisors for Scientific American, holds four patents, and is one of the originators of the Pecan Street Project, which is a citywide, multi-institutional effort in Austin to create the electricity and water utilities of the future by the innovation and implementation of smart grids, smart meters, and smart appliances. Prior to joining UT-Austin, Michael studied issues relevant to energy, innovation, manufacturing, and national security at the RAND Corporation. Previously, he was a Senior Scientist at Pranalytica inventing sensors for security, industrial and environmental monitoring applications. Michael’s education includes a B.A. with High Honors (Plan II Liberal Arts) and B.S. with High Honors (Aerospace Engineering) from UT-Austin, and an M.S. (Mechanical Engineering) and Ph.D. (Mechanical Engineering, Minor in Electrical Engineering) from Stanford University, where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow from 1995-1998. In 2005, Michael was recognized by the College of Engineering at UT-Austin as an Outstanding Young Engineering Graduate, and in 2006 was honored as the Commencement Speaker for the spring graduation ceremony. Michael was selected as an American Memorial Marshall Fellow of the German Marshall Fund for 2007, a White House Fellowship finalist in 2009, an AT&T Industrial Ecology Fellow in 2009, an Aspen Institute Environmental Forum Scholar in 2010 and a recipient of the Dad’s Associating Teaching Fellowship in 2011. From 2004 to 2006 he was a board member for the Hope Street Group, which is a non-profit bi-partisan national organization for young professionals interested in promoting policies that expand opportunity and economic growth. Webber’s expertise, opinions and research have been cited or featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, NPR, PBS, The Daily Telegraph, BBC, ABC, CBS, Discovery, Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, MSNBC, Nature Geoscience, Earth Magazine, and many other prominent media outlets. His commentary on American energy policy and international affairs have been published in daily and Sunday editions of the Austin American-Statesman, Dallas Morning News, San Antonio Express-News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and the Houston Chronicle, and featured in a documentary about biofuels by the PBS national weekly newsmagazine NOW.