The EPG team consists of over 20 professionals with extensive hands-on senior management and executive experience in all facets of the electric power industry, including planning, contracts, transmission, operations, reliability, market design, power plant development, energy policy, and technologies.  A brief introduction to the EPG team is provided below:

Vikram Budhraja
heads Electric Power Group as its President.  He was formerly at Edison International in senior executive positions, including: President, Edison Technology Solutions; Senior Vice President and Head of Power Grid Business Unit, Southern California Edison; Vice President, System Planning, Fuels and Operations, Southern California Edison.  Mr. Budhraja has extensive experience in power systems planning and operations, electric industry restructuring, reliability management, new ventures and technologies. 

Ike Arshadi
is EPG’s Chief Financial Officer and responsible for corporate functions.  Ike has over 25 years experience with technology and start-up companies in the areas of corporate governance, human resources, tax, accounting, and financial management.  Ike is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

John Ballance
was formerly Director of Engineering and Planning at Southern California Edison.  Prior assignments included Manager of Grid Dispatch and Operations and Manager of System Operations.  John led teams that were responsible for designing and implementing the market and operations portions of the CAISO.  John  has extensive experience in WECC on operations, transmission, reliability, and dispatch.

Mike Blower
has held senior management positions for Power Trading, Fuel Supply and Procurement at Southern California Edison where he was responsible for setting up gas procurement and operations in the early 1990’s in response to gas industry deregulation.  He has extensive experience in contract negotiations and dispute resolution.  In the past two years, he has been providing assistance to California Department of Water Resources on fuel supply and management for their 12,000 MW portfolio of contracts. 

Frank Carrera
is an expert on databases and applications development.  He developed Suppliers Performance Monitoring system using the CAISO PI system, and the NERC-CERTS ACE-Frequency Monitoring application.

Margaret Cheng
is an expert in resource planning and power plant operations.  At Electric Power Group, Margaret has been responsible for analysis of loads and resources for California and to assess resource needs for summer reliability.  Previously, Margaret worked at Southern California Edison with responsibility for strategic planning, resource planning, and power plant operations.

Joe Coroas
has been responsible for the WECC Phasor network project for real-time monitoring of the Western Grid and to install a monitoring system at CAISO.  He was formerly at Southern California Edison.  He has extensive experience in the engineering and installation of remote telemetry systems for SCADA and EMS.

Ajay Das
is responsible for research, design and development of software applications at EPG. He has been involved in the development of ACE-Frequency Monitoring, Inadvertent Interchange Monitoring, Frequency Data Collection and Analysis. He has extensive experience in computer aided design and analysis, 2D/3D modeling and simulation and data-centered graphics and visualization systems.

Jim Dyer
was formerly Manager of System Operation and Energy Control Center, Southern California Edison.  He led his Edison team to implement Independent System Operator and Power Exchange structure.  Jim has extensive experience in WECC and NERC on operations, transmission, reliability, and dispatch.  He has led assessments of ISO design and operations, transmission bottlenecks, and reliability standards and metrics. 

Lupe Garcia
is responsible for management of contracts, research, project administration, accounts receivable/payable, and office management.  Lupe was formerly at SCE responsible for executive and administrative support for a business unit.

Jim Henneforth
is experienced in power plant development and project management.  He is responsible for due diligence on new power plants being constructed in California to supply the Department of Water Resources.  He formerly held positions of Vice President and Chief Technical Officer – Edison Mission Energy Co; Vice President and Executive Director of European Operations – Edison Mission Energy Company; and Vice President of Project Management – Edison Mission Energy Co. 

Steve Hess
has 25-years experience in gas operations, energy marketing, power trading, risk management and market analysis for EPG.  He was formerly at Edison Mission Energy responsible for risk management, and at Southern California Edison, responsible for power systems operations analysis.

Joe Judge
is experienced in power contracts and power plant design and operation.  For the last three years has assisted the State of California oversee its power contracts including negotiation, performance management, technical review, due diligence, and analysis.  Previously, Joe’s responsibilities included contract negotiations with Independent Power Producers to manage and restructure long-term power purchase contracts.

Carlos Martinez
has held technical and managerial positions at Southern California Edison and Florida Power & Light in the areas of SCADA, Energy Management Systems, production costs, and performance for real-time operations.  He is leading efforts to develop real time tools for grid reliability management.  Carlos led the Frequency-ACE Investigation Team working with NERC on analysis of the August 14, 2003 Blackout.  He leads the Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions team on development of software applications for real-time grid reliability management and performance monitoring. 

Martha Martinez
provides assistance with the research and development of software tools of real-time monitoring systems for reliability performance compliance in the electricity industry, and prepares project systems support documentation.

Jaime Medina
has over 12-years of utility experience.  Since 2000, some of Jaime’s assignments have included assisting the State of California in resource and need planning, contract analysis and evaluations; work on the NERC project on reliability standards and in designing a reliability management audit plan.  Previously, he was Manager of Project and Technology Development with extensive experience in business planning, distributed generation, technology commercialization, new ventures and strategic alliances.

Jianzhong (Simon) Mo
is an expert in visualization technologies, computer graphics and applications development.  Simon is currently working on Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions research on applications for reliability and real-time performance monitoring.

Fred Mobasheri
has over 35-years of experience and his work in the power industry includes system planning, system operations, power contracts, wholesale power marketing, and market monitoring.  Since 2000, some of Fred’s assignments have include assisting the Department of Water Resources/California Energy Resources Scheduling in resource planning, contract evaluation, and management strategies; Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in development of a long-term resource plan; a mid-west utility on RTO issues XCEL and formation of Southwest Power Pool.  He was formerly Manager of Market Monitoring at California Power Exchange and worked.  Prior to that, he was at Southern California Edison responsible for System Planning, Power Contracts, and Strategic Studies.

Lloyd Rowe
has over 15-years of experience in planning and analysis, renewables development, regulatory policies, power contracts, and economic analysis.  Lloyd specializes in renewable technology resources having participated in the negotiation and/or renegotiation of over a dozen of DWR’s contracts representing biomass, biogas, and wind technologies.

Jim Terpening
was responsible for Dispatcher Training at Southern California Edison.  He held various substation positions at Southern California Edison including superintendent, operator, chief, and program engineer – energy control center.