IEM ENERGY CONSULTANTS - Key Persons

Mr. Hulse has more than 35 years "hands on" gas turbine-based power plant experience, beginning as a US Navy (USN) Gas Systems Technician (electrical) and progressing through supervisory and management positions. Mr. Hulse's experience includes multiple-plant O&M management (including P+L accountability), management of centralized plant support activities, gas turbine component repair and reverse engineering, engineering management of a mobile power plant packager. He has also served in engineering and program management functions at an independent aero derivative gas turbine MRO shop and experience as a mobile gas turbine power plant fleet manager. Over the course of these assignments he has been responsible for well over half a billion dollars in assets, over $20MM in operating budgets, over $35MM in capital budgets and a workforce of 180+. He has experience dealing with collective bargaining agreements, developing alliance and strategic partnership agreements and instituting "best practices" techniques. Brian has led teams that negotiated fuel and power supply contracts, major equipment purchases, and he successfully represented his employer during regulatory and other legal hearings. He has accomplished all of this in a manner that recognized the value of a proactive emphasis on safety. Mr. Hulse completed coursework in Computer Sciences at West Shore Community College (Scottville, MI). This was followed by over 60 weeks of progressive USN training achieving Electricians Mate certification including work on Marine Gas Turbines, boiler feedwater testing/treatment, static inverters, fuel oil testing, oil purification and Shipboard firefighting and damage control. Following his service Brian has completed more than 500 hours of continuing education including both technical and management skills training. I Brian has served on the board of directors for the Western Turbine Users Incorporated (WTUI) and of the Association for Facilities Engineering. He is a patent holder for Trailer Mounted Mobile Power System and is the author of multiple technical and management articles published in the Combined Cycle Journal and others.

Job Titles:

• Co - Owner
• President

Owner and founder of IEM Energy Consultants LLC has almost 35 years of broad based experience in the power and process industries. He founded IEM in 1998, which provides consulting services in all aspects of power plant operations, maintenance, and management to clients worldwide. Mr. Fassett has been involved in the negotiations of long-term service agreements representing almost 30 GW of gas turbine generating capacity worldwide and has testified as an expert witness regarding proper operations and maintenance practices and procedures. Prior to forming IEM, Mr. Fassett held roles of increasing responsibility with various utilities, both regulated and IPP's, as well as petrochemical process facilities. These roles included Plant Engineer, Maintenance Engineer, Start Up Manager, Maintenance Manager and Plant Superintendent. His experience includes coal, combined cycle and coal gasification. Mr. Fassett sits on the Board of Directors of the Plant Managers Institute, the Advisory Board of the Electric Power Conference, is a member of the ASME Power Committee, and International Gas Turbine Institute, Education Subcommittee. He has taught college classes in Energy & the Environment, Ethics in the Energy Industry, Electronics and Power Plant Operations. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from North Dakota State University with an emphasis in Power Plant System Design.

Job Titles:

• Gas Turbine Specialist
• Senior Consultant, Gas Turbine Technical Specialist

Joseph Mitchell is a Senior Consultant, Gas Turbine Technical Specialist and Project Manager with more than 28 years of power generation industry experience. His experience encompasses roles in the operations, maintenance and outage quality excellence of coal fired and simple/combined cycle power generation facilities, component repair sales and service and independent consultant. As a Gas Turbine Specialist, Mr. Mitchell provided technical expertise to several IPP owned/operated facilities across the country, including vintage Westinghouse 191, 251AA - B12 and 501AA - D5A machines; Siemens V and 501F class machines and GE F5 - 7FA class machines. In addition to his technical experience, Mr. Mitchell held roles of increasing responsibility in both regulated, unregulated and IPP facilities including Maintenance Management, Major Maintenance Outage Manager, and Plant Manager. Shuster, Lewis Mr. Lewis Shuster is an experienced power generation professional with over 40 years of steam turbine, steam systems and power plant experience. He has demonstrated technical support, field engineering, design engineering, startup, troubleshooting, root cause analysis, outage management and project management expertise. Mr. Shuster has led the steam turbine services efforts for both independent services companies as well as original equipment manufacturers (OEM's). His experience also includes project management of turbine services for asset owners as Independent Power Producers (IPP's), Investor Owned Utilities (IOU's) and government owned utilities. Mr. Shuster has managed P&L on capital projects more than 250 million dollars per annum. This included repair, failure analysis, and engineered upgrades on fossil, hydro and nuclear turbine generators manufactured by ABB, Alstom, GE, Westinghouse, and Parsons ranging from 60 MW to 1,200MW.

Job Titles:

• Co - Chair of the CTOF Large Frame Committee
• Power Generation Manager

Michael Hartsig is an experienced power generation manager with over 40 years of technical and management experience handling large, complex issues and projects. Michael's accomplishments include; restart of a large nuclear power plant, management assessment and project management of multi-unit coal-fired plants and major outage and retrofit responsibility of large frame gas turbines. His unique skills include outage planning, outage management and project management. These skills have proven invaluable in performing scheduling reviews and overall projects as well as specific tasks and milestones, budget control and material management. Michael has held leadership roles as plant manager, general manager and as a consultant for Independent Power Producers (IPP's), regulated utilities and in independent consulting service. Michael has served as co-chair of the CTOF large frame committee, presented papers to multiple industry groups and has published technical papers in the Combined Cycle Journal. Michael's formal education includes completion of a degree in the Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Michigan, (Ann Arbor, Michigan), Public Utility Executive Management Program. He also holds a BS in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix (Phoenix, Arizona) and he has completed the Management Studies Program in the Center for Executive Development at Arizona State University, (Tempe, Arizona) His technical background includes power plant instrumentation, electrical transmission and process water treatment.

Job Titles:

• Engineer
• Senior Consultant

Phillip L. Webster is a Senior Consultant, Engineer and Project Manager with over 30 years of power generation industry experience. His career includes over 20 years in private consulting as well more than 10 years with an operating utility. He had P&L responsibility for the Operations & Maintenance (O&M) Consulting Services business line for a multinational consulting engineering & EPC firm. In that role he led efforts to aid clients in Operations and Maintenance Programs for a variety of fossil generating technologies. Projects included: life assessments, operations improvements, staffing/training assessments, reliability improvement, technology implementation, and outage management. He also has experience in support of performance testing, asset evaluation (due diligence), operator training, and development / review of operating as well as maintenance procedures. His utility experience included roles as performance testing engineer, fuels analyst, and corporate planning engineer in support of long-range plans and rate cases. In addition to his project experience, Mr. Webster has authored and presented numerous papers at conferences and in industry publications and has also prepared and presented rate case testimony. Mr. Webster holds a bachelor's degree in Engineering Management (minor in Mechanical Engineering) and an MBA from the University of Missouri system.

Job Titles:

• Co - Owner
• Leader
• Vice President

Rob Shepard has over 30 years of experience in the energy industry including coal, gas, oil and renewable fueled power generation facilities. He has extensive knowledge and experience in operations, maintenance and asset management of power generation and process facilities gained from first-hand experiences and leadership roles throughout his career. He is recognized as an industry expert in power asset maintenance management, outage management, operations, troubleshooting, plant startup and commissioning as well as root cause analysis (RCA). He has also implemented maintenance management systems, performed reliability studies, and provided training in all the above areas. His knowledge and experience have proven invaluable in supporting due diligence for power plant acquisitions. Rob provides expert witness testimony in his areas of expertise in support of our clients. Mr. Shepard is a leader with strong character and exceptional work ethic. Mr. Shepard holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Mississippi State University. He is a registered Professional Engineer (Kansas #17743 and Mississippi #20887) and is a Certified Project Management Professional (PMI ID: 2355353). Rob is a board member for the ASME Mississippi Section.