Board of Directors
The CESA Board of Directors is composed of individuals from leading energy storage companies in California, the United States, and the world.
The variety of companies on the Board reflects the wide array of energy storage applications and technologies participating in the California market and bringing value to the electric grid.
Board Chair
Renae Steichen, Senior Director of Regulatory Affairs
Renae is the Senior Director of Regulatory Affairs for REV Renewables, leading California storage policy and ISO/RTO markets policy activities. She has 15 years of experience in the clean energy industry with public and private organizations in California and across the country.
Vice Chair
David Stripling, Director of Business Development
David Stripling has 14 years of experience in the renewable energy industry plus an additional 5 years experience developing over $125M of infrastructure. Most recently he was Director of Utility Scale Development for Sunrise Energy Ventures, where he secured awards for over 165MWs of PV in 12 months. Prior to this role, he was head of Product Marketing for Stem, where he owned the offer strategy and pricing for over 150MWHs of storage. David built the core of his experience in energy storage as Director of Product Management for Storage at NEXTracker, where he developed and deployed over 50MWH of stationary storage across the US, Canada and China. In 2013, David led Corporate Development at Soligent, and launched the Solar Engine, a value-added financial services program which deployed PV in 5 States. He has an MBA from the Presidio Graduate School, where he distinguished himself as Jesse Fink Fellow, Richard M. Grey Fellow, and Hult Finalist. David also completed his BA in Classics from the University of Texas at Austin. He enjoys being outdoors, fly fishing, and playing music with his friends.
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Secretary
Jennifer Burke, Head of Energy Storage Market Strategy and Market Development
Jennifer Burke leads Lockheed Martin’s energy storage market strategy and market development. Lockheed Martin is currently commercializing a proprietary long-duration, flexible, flow battery designed to enable resilient, reliable, and renewably powered electric grids. Jennifer has over 20 years of experience advancing, advising, and investing in innovative energy and climate tech companies, ranging from early-stage start-ups to multi-billion dollar companies. She holds a BA from Middlebury College and an MBA from MIT.
Governance Chair
Dan Patry, Senior Manager, State Government Affairs
Dan Patry is a legislative, regulatory and market development expert with over 14 years of experience in the energy sector developing strategies to secure positive commercial, strategic and policy outcomes. Dan currently oversees political strategy and policy development for AES Clean Energy in California.
Treasurer
Cathleen Colbert, Director, CAISO Market Policy
Cathleen Colbert is the Director of CAISO Market Policy for Vistra Corp. in the West advocating for capacity, energy, and ancillary service market policies that seek to improve the function and efficiency of the markets administered by the California Public Utility Commission, California Independent System Operator (CAISO) and the Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM). Ms. Colbert brings over a decade of experience in wholesale energy market oversight, design, and operations to her advocacy for competitive markets. Prior to Vistra, she served as a Regulatory Affairs Manager at NRG Energy supporting its PJM distributed energy resources fleet and its West generation fleet. Ms. Colbert began her work in the Western markets at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission analyzing allegations of market manipulation and then at the CAISO where she successfully designed up to 35 day-ahead and real-time market enhancements. Ms. Colbert’s expertise includes energy market participation and market power mitigation rules, operationalizing ancillary services, planning and procurement of capacity markets, gas-electric coordination, and opportunities and challenges due to the growth of energy storage. Ms. Colbert earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science from Chatham University and a Masters of Science in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University.
Board Member
Tim Hemig, Senior Vice President Strategic Development & Acquisitions
Tim Hemig is head of Tenaska Storage Solutions (TSS) which brings to bear expertise in development, origination, capital formation, engineering, and energy management of standalone energy storage projects. TSS is developing approximately 2 GW of energy storage projects in strategic CAISO locations to help Californians meet their ambitious renewable portfolio objectives in a highly reliable manner. Affiliate Tenaska Power Services provides battery optimization and energy resource management services for this portfolio and well as for third-party projects.
Board Member
Paul Smerchanski, Director of Origination
Paul Smerchanski is a Director of Origination at Arevon Energy where he is responsible for finding customers for clean energy projects across North America. He has spent over a decade at renewable and energy storage project developers working on projects in the US and Canada, in roles spanning development, strategy, and origination. Paul has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Manitoba and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.
Board Member
Hugh McDermott, SVP, Business Development and Sales
Mr. McDermott is the Senior Vice President of Business Development & Sales at ESS Tech, Inc. (ESS). An energy sector executive focused on growing energy infrastructure and advanced energy technology businesses primarily addressing utility, industrial and commercial sectors, Mr. McDermott has served in numerous executive and leadership roles throughout his career in high-growth start-up companies as well as executive roles in publicly listed enterprises. In November of 2021, Mr. McDermott was appointed to the Chair’s Council on Climate, a subcommittee of the U.S. Export-Import Bank’s (Ex-Im’s) Advisory Committee. In that role, Mr. McDermott advises Ex-Im’s Chairwoman and President on how the agency can better support U.S. exporters and American jobs in clean and renewable energy to fulfill the mandate from Congress for Ex-Im to promote and support environmentally beneficial, renewable-energy, energy-efficiency, and energy-storage exports from the United States.
Board Member
Suzanne Leta, Vice President, Policy and Advocacy, Americas
Suzanne Leta serves as the VP of Policy and Advocacy, Americas, at Fluence. Throughout her career in renewable energy, she has led initiatives in federal, state, local, and international public policy advocacy, public relations, business strategy, and project development. She also has more than 15 years of experience serving on the board or as an advisor to various trade associations and non-profit organizations.
Board Member
Curt Hildebrand, Senior Vice President, Commercial Affairs
Curt Hildebrand brings over 35 years of experience and leadership in the independent power and renewable energy industries. Mr. Hildebrand has served in a wide array of highly productive management roles in project development, power sales & marketing, project finance, government & regulatory affairs and business development.
Board Member
Ryan Millard, Sr. Director, West Region Regulatory and Political Affairs
Ryan Millard is Senior Director of Regulatory and Political Affairs for NextEra Energy Resources. Mr. Millard works closely with origination, development, energy storage, and transmission teams and leads the development and implementation of the company's regulatory strategy and policy advocacy at the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) and the broader western region. Prior to joining NextEra in 2023, Ryan held roles with Portland General Electric Company and PacifiCorp.
Board Member
Jeremy Niederjohn, Vice President, Storage Market Leader
Jeremy Niederjohn is Vice President – Storage Market Leader at RWE Clean Energy where he is responsible for the growth of the utility scale battery storage business. Jeremy joined RWE in March of 2023, with RWE’s acquisition of Con Edison Clean Energy Businesses. At Con Edison Clean Energy Businesses, Jeremy led the battery storage development team. Jeremy has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering as well as a Master of Business Administration from Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI.
Board Member
Misty Blizzard, Director of Commercial Optimization, Trading & Transmission
Misty Blizzard is the director of Southern Power’s commercial optimization, trading, and transmission department. She oversees a team responsible for administration and compliance of power purchase agreements covering a 12.5 GW generating fleet comprised of wind, solar, battery storage, natural gas, and fuel cells. Additionally, her team is actively engaged in power markets across the United States and is responsible for optimizing revenue through PPA optimization, market interaction, hedging, and trading portfolio length.
Blizzard has previous experience in finance, resource planning, project development, structuring, asset management, and acquisitions. In addition, she spent several years in plant operations.
Board Member
Chris Devon, Director of Energy Market Policy
Chris Devon leads Terra-Gen's organized energy market policy and regulatory coverage. As Director of Energy Market Policy for Terra-Gen, Chris works closely with scheduling and portfolio management and development groups to support growth strategies and advocate for competitive wholesale energy market policies. Chris has experience developing policy for storage and hybrid resource market participation and represents Terra-Gen on industry trade associations. Prior to joining Terra-Gen, Chris held roles with Customized Energy Solutions, the California ISO, and the Michigan Public Service Commission.
Board Member
Andy Schwartz, Senior Policy Advisor
Board Member
Grant McDaniel, Director of Hybrid Engineering & Director of Market Services
Grant has over 30 years of power generation experience with Wellhead, General Electric, and Stewart & Stevenson. As the Director of Hybrid Engineering, Grant oversees the sales and product development of Wellhead’s integrated energy storage / gas hybrid product line. Grant was a key leader of the Wellhead/GE Electric Gas Turbine (EGT®) hybrid development team and holds multiple patents for simple-cycle and combined-cycle Hybrid EGT® control methodologies. As the Director of Market Services - Wellhead Power eXchange, Grant oversees the market services including RA sales, daily CAISO market sales and scheduling coordination as well as the remote operation of Wellhead’s gas, energy storage, and energy storage hybrid fleet.
Board Member
Jason Burwen, VP of Policy and Strategy
Jason was previously Vice President of Energy Storage at the American Clean Power Association (ACP), as well as interim CEO and Vice President of Policy at the U.S. Energy Storage Association (ESA), where he built and directed the energy storage industry’s comprehensive federal, state, and regional market policy advocacy strategy from 2015 to 2023. His advocacy directly shaped the energy storage federal investment tax credit in the Inflation Reduction Act; the directives of FERC Order 841; several state deployment targets; capacity accreditation reforms in PJM; and other laws and regulations pertaining to energy storage. He has been cited as an expert on energy storage technology, policy, and markets in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, NPR, the New Yorker, and numerous trade publications.
Earlier in his career Jason directed research and advocacy on U.S. energy innovation and tax policy as the Associate Director for Energy Innovation at the Bipartisan Policy Center; consulted to utilities on demand response program design at FSC Group/Nexant; and reviewed utility renewable energy contracting processes for the California Public Utilities Commission. Jason holds MA’s from the University of California – Berkeley’s Energy and Resource Group and Goldman School of Public Policy, as well as a BA from Columbia University.
