PINTAIL POWER - Key Persons


Bob Callery

Job Titles:
  • Advisor
  • Chairman, Renewable Energy Infrastructure Group

Bruce Webster

Job Titles:
  • Advisor
  • President, Concordia Resources

Dr. William M. Conlon - Founder, President

Job Titles:
  • FOUNDER
  • PRESIDENT
Dr. William M. Conlon, P.E., is the founder, and President of Pintail Power, and the inventor of the Liquid Air Combined Cycle™ (LACC) and Liquid Salt Combined Cycle™ (LSCC) technologies. Dr. Conlon's track record of successfully managing innovation from concept through commercialization, includes Cheng Cycle Steam Injected Gas Turbines, and the Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector Solar Steam Generator. Since 2013, he has pioneered hybrid energy storage systems for utility-scale applications to address the CAISO Duck Curve and similar renewable integration problems around the world. After receiving a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering and Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he joined Pacific Gas & Electric Company to manage development of the Operator Training Simulator for the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. He then joined International Power Technology where he was responsible for I&C functions and developed the control systems for the first Cheng Cycle cogeneration power plants, which are still in operation at several California locations three decades later. He also led new product development, had a key role in operational improvement and supported international business, licensing and technology transfer. Dr. Conlon led the technical turn-around of Ausra Inc., taking its CLFR technology to price-performance leadership in the solar thermal market. He was instrumental in the sale of Ausra to AREVA and the subsequent award of more than $1 billion of new business around the world. While Senior Vice President of Engineering at AREVA, he was responsible for Engineering, Commissioning and Operations teams on three continents. Dr. Conlon is the holder of over 20 patents world-wide as inventor or co-inventor of technologies related to steam injected gas turbines, solar power, water treatment, and both cryogenic and high temperature thermal storage. He is a registered Professional Engineer in California and a member of ASME, IEEE, AAAS, and Sigma Xi. He also serves on the ASME PTC-53 committee for Performance Testing of Energy Storage Systems.

Judith Schwartz

Job Titles:
  • CHIEF MARKETING ADVISOR
Ms. Schwartz is guiding Pintail Power's strategic marketing, branding, and communications activities. For the last decade her consulting company, To the Point, has been focusing on customer and stakeholder engagement in the energy sector, identifying and prototyping best practices for sustainability, Smart Grid, renewables, time-variant pricing, low-income programs, and equitable decarbonization. Working at the nexus of public policy, technology, communications, and business; she consults to utilities, national organizations, and research companies. She is a former Vice Chair of the Palo Alto Utility Advisory Commission. After management roles at Apple Computer (1982-1987), Ms. Schwartz began her consulting practice in 1987, specializing in systems consulting, organizational alignment, strategic marketing, and integrated marketing campaigns for leading companies and start-ups introducing disruptive technologies. She simultaneously co-founded and served as president of a start-up that invented a freeze crystallization technology for water purification that was ahead of its time. Ms. Schwartz publishes articles, reports, research studies and organizes cross-stakeholder collaborations. Clients have included the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Low Income Energy Issues Forum (LIEIF), Association of Demand Response and Smart Grid, Distributed Energy Financial Group (DEFG), the Institute for Electric Efficiency/Edison Electric Institute (EEI), Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative, Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and the FERC/DOE National Action Plan Coalition. She led and was principal investigator for the Low Income Consumer Solar Working Group which convened stakeholders over the course of 2018 and resulted in a roadmap to encourage broader access to solar. Ms. Schwartz is a graduate of Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning.

Milton J. Venetos

Job Titles:
  • VICE PRESIDENT, SYSTEMS
Mr. Venetos has over 20 years of energy industry experience. He has a deep understanding of power generation technologies with direct experience in combined cycle, coal, IGCC, oil & gas, renewable, nuclear, and advanced energy systems in a variety of capacities ranging from equipment design and selection to on site troubleshooting to plant modeling and optimization. He began his career as a mechanical engineer with Enter Software, Inc (now part of General Electric) where he contributed to the development of the GateCycle heat and mass balance and EfficiencyMap online performance monitoring software packages. Mr. Venetos has trained hundreds of engineers around the world and consulted on the design, development and operation of dozens of power plants around the world using the EBSILON Professional and GateCycle heat balance software packages. In 2007 Mr. Venetos joined Ausra, a venture funded, Silicon Valley start-up company where he helped refine and advance a Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technology. Ausra was acquired by AREVA in early 2010. As Senior Vice President, product management at AREVA Solar, he led the development of AREVA Solar's product road maps, built Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) models of AREVA and competitor solar energy systems, and explored new technologies to reduce LCOE. While at AREVA he built and ran the performance model used to quote linear Fresnel solar thermal power and process heat plants in the USA, Australia, India, South Africa, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. Mr. Venetos holds a Master of Science in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Pete Cartright

Job Titles:
  • Advisor
  • Founding CEO, Calpine Corporation

Richard Zahner

Job Titles:
  • Advisor
  • Principal, Next Energy Concepts

Sam McIntosh

Job Titles:
  • Advisor
  • President, Primoris Renewable Energy

Shawn Mangan - VP of Sales

Job Titles:
  • Vice President, Sales
Mr. Mangan joins Pintail Power with more than 30 years of experience in Business Development, Contract Management and Construction Supervision for various power, industrial, and chemical projects. Prior to Pintail Power, Mr. Magnan held the position as Vice President of Business Development for Primoris Renewable Energy a full service engineering, procurement and construction company serving both the renewable energy and energy storage markets. Mr. Mangan holds a BA in Political Science from Temple University.