Advisory Board
From the Geothermal Resources Council
Biographical Info
Mr. Dickey has a B.S. in Architectural Engineering from Kansas State University and brings 40 years of experience in power generation development. Currently an independent consultant, Mr. Dickey spent the last ten years of his career at TAS Energy, Inc. and UTC Power, two companies that specialized in the development, sale, and installation of Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) power equipment in the geothermal industry. Prior to these, Mr. Dickey worked for a number of well-known companies and their power engineering divisions. Specific to GreenFire Energy’s technology development, Mr. Dickey has specific experience in the design of supercritical sCO2 power generating systems, including Rankine Cycle power equipment, sCO2 turbines, and sCO2 expanders.
Mr. Dickey served on the Board of Directors for the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) from 2008-2014 and has been a presenter at numerous GEA, GRC, Power-Gen, GeoPower International, and SMU Oil & Gas conferences over the last ten years. Presentation topics and specific areas of DOE-funded studies include: low temperature geothermal power generation; advanced supercritical ORC power systems; axial expanders for low-grade heat; high efficiency expanders; geothermal resource sustainability; and air-cooled combined-cycle hybrids.
Biographical Info
As the former Director of Geothermal Technologies Program for U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in Washington D.C. (2002-2006), Dr. Leland “Roy” Mink’s technical expertise is in geology, hydrogeology, and geothermal resource characterization. Dr. Mink began his career as a hydro-geologist with the Idaho Bureau of Mines and Geology (1972-76) and was associate professor of hydrogeology at Boise State University. Dr. Mink also served as research geo-hydrologist for US Environmental Protection Agency in Las Vegas (1976-77) and was a geothermal energy project manager for Department of Energy in Washington, DC and Idaho Falls (1977-80). He worked as a hydrology project engineer for Morrison-Knudson in Boise (1980-89). For more than ten years (1989-2001), he directed the Idaho Water Resources Research Institute at the University of Idaho.
Dr. Mink then spent several years in the DOE and maintains close contacts there to this day. He has also served as technical advisor to Nevada Energy and sits on the board of directors for U.S. Geothermal Inc. He has been a member of the National Science Academy Earth Resource committee and is currently on the board of directors for Geothermal Resources Council. He has held positions of research faculty with Southern Methodist University and University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Currently, Dr. Mink resides in Idaho and is the principal with Mink GeoHydro Inc., consulting in water and geothermal energy. He earned a B.S. in math and science from Idaho State University and an M.S. in hydrology and Ph.D. in geology from the University of Idaho.
Biographical Info
Dr. Daniel Moos is an expert in geomechanics and reservoir description with more than 30 years of experience in academia and industry, focused on measuring and understanding the effects of the in-situ stresses on upstream operations in oil and gas, geothermal, and mining exploration and development. He has published more than 100 papers and holds patents in the areas of rock physics, geophysics, stress determination, wellbore imaging, wellbore stability, and fracture stimulation. He was a founding member of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Borehole Research Group, and a 10-year participant in Stanford University’s SRB Consortium prior to co-founding GeoMechanics International which developed geomechanics software and delivered consulting and training to industry clients.
He joined Baker Hughes as part of GMI’s acquisition in 2008, and served as GMI Chief Scientist prior to promotion to Technology Fellow in 2011, and in 2012 founded Baker’s Palo Alto Innovation Center serving as its Director and then Chief Scientist. He recently resigned his position at Baker Hughes to focus on other activities. Dr. Moos received his PhD in geophysics from Stanford University, and BS in geology from Cornell University. He was elected an Honorary Member of the SPE in 2016.
Biographical Info
Joseph Osha is a Managing Director and the senior analyst in charge of alternative energy and energy technology equity research at JMP Group. He was an early member of the GreenFire Energy management team and held the role of Chief Financial Officer. Most notably he worked with private sector and public sector partners to build a detailed cost model for GreenFire Energy’s technology. Mr. Osha served as Chief Financial Officer at Gravity Renewables, an investor-backed owner, operator and developer of small hydroelectric power plants in the U.S.
Mr. Osha spent more than 20 years working on Wall Street as a highly ranked analyst and manager. At Bank of America Merrill Lynch he served as Head of Asia ex-Japan Equity and was Deputy Head of Americas Equity Research. He has been involved in several alternative energy public equity offerings including SolarCity, Enphase Energy and NRG Yield.
Mr. Osha has an MBA with High Distinction from the University of Michigan and has a Masters degree in East Asian Area Studies, also from Michigan. He has a B.A. in business administration from the University of Richmond and he is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Biographical Info
Dr. Scott Paterson received a B.S. in Geology from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz. After completing a two-year Postdoc at Macquarie University, Australia and the University of California, Santa Cruz, he has been a professor in the Earth Sciences Department, University of Southern California for the past 27 years.
Originally trained as a structural geologist specializing in strain analyses, Dr. Paterson has worked extensively on the behavior of crust in the plastic zone at and below the brittle-plastic transition. He also works extensively on magmatic systems in continental margin arcs, particularly on the use of magmatic structures to unravel the temporal evolution of coupled magmatic-ductile host rock systems. His research group is presently examining the changing fluid regimes across the brittle plastic transition. He has authored and coauthored over 150 publications and received over 20 grants from the National Science Foundation.
Biographical Info
Bob is a seasoned executive with 42 years in the upstream oil and gas industry in oilfield services, operations, technology, management, and consulting. As the Strategic Relationships Director for Blade Energy Partners, Bob leads advanced projects with super major operators (BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Total), international operators (BHP, Lukoil, Repsol), North American operators (Devon, Husky, Suncor), and research organizations. Bob has managed many projects including: drilling to the earth’s mantle; developing deepwater technologies for safety and well integrity; designing high pressure, high temperature wells; developing geothermal deep wells; and addressing natural gas storage issues. Bob served as the U.S. General Manager for Precision Drilling’s Northland affiliate, Production Services Coordinator for Paris-based Geoservices, Executive VP for Stric-Lan Companies Corporation, and held roles at Schlumberger.
Bob is actively involved in industry organizations including the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN), American Petroleum Institute (API), American Association of Drilling Engineers (AADE), Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), and International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC). He has presented at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), SMU Geothermal Laboratory, EUCI, and the Energy Utility and Environment Conference.
Bob earned a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an M.B.A. from Texas Southern University, and a J.D. from South Texas College of Law.
Biographical Info
Dr. Justin Raade is an expert in concentrating solar power, energy storage and waste heat recovery with over 15 years of experience. Dr. Raade’s business strategy and management skills have been honed by real-world entrepreneurship and negotiating partnerships with Fortune 500 companies. Dr. Raade is the VP Engineering at Sunvapor, Inc. He founded Halotechnics, Inc. to develop and commercialize energy storage technology and heat recovery applications.
At Symyx Technologies, Dr. Raade investigated alternative energy technologies, including concentrating solar power, fuel cell reformers, and advanced industrial lubricants. Dr. Raade has an S.B. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in mechanical engineering.
Biographical Info
Dr. Andy Van Horn provides expertise and insight into energy and environmental markets, technologies and regulations. For over thirty-five years he has assisted utilities, developers of new technologies, research institutes, government agencies and market participants by scrutinizing market economics, regulatory rules, technology costs and performance, and contracts in electricity, emissions and fuels markets. From 2007-2014, his firm served as Independent Evaluators of electricity and natural gas procurements and contracts for major California electric utilities, facilitating Requests for Offers, evaluating bids and reviewing contract terms for conventional, renewable, demand-side, and combined heat-and-power resources.
Earlier, while consulting to the U.S. EPA and the Electric Power Research Institute, he led national studies of energy, fuels and environmental markets and policies, including New Source Performance Standards, New Source Review, emission fees, cap-and-trade, technology penetration and the coordination of U.S. energy and environmental policy to 2050. He recently carried out comprehensive studies of California’s AB 32 rules for GHG reduction. He applies economic, financial, production cost, power flow and engineering models to integrate policy development, data analysis, market fundamentals, and scenario design.
Andy’s experience regarding electricity market operations, prices, technologies, regulations and contracts will help evaluate investment, technology and business decisions, including power purchase agreements. He earned a B.S. from Harvey Mudd College and a Ph.D. in physics from UC Berkeley.