USEA is pleased to recognize Mark Kellaher as USEA’s 2018 Individual Volunteer of the Year.

Mr. Kellaher serves as a Design Phase Manager at Mortenson specializing in utility scale energy storage and electrification. He focuses on contract and commercial services management, strategy development, regulatory policy analysis, and the management of large capital infrastructure projects.

He previously served with the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), helping to develop and support the competitive transmission solicitation and award process for high-voltage transmission in a 15-state footprint, and worked as a management consultant within the energy industry specializing on large scale electric transmission and substation projects in the upper Midwest. Prior to entering the energy industry, Mr. Kellaher practiced law and worked for a Washington, DC-based consulting firm focused on US government contracts.

Mr. Kellaher has been an energetic and frequent contributor to the US Agency for International Development’s Power Africa initiative and the United States Energy Association’s (USEA) Electric Utility Partnership Program. Mr. Kellaher has provided Pro Bono instruction in Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda to support USEA partnership activities by training senior leadership from the 16 national utilities who are members of the East Africa Power Pool (EAPP) and Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Program (NELSAP) in project management, governance, and regulatory and financial management of managing complex energy infrastructure projects. Mr. Kellaher was the recipient of the US Energy Association’s 2018 Individual Volunteer of the Year for his working supporting this mission.

Mr. Kellaher is a member of the Pacific Council of International Policy and serves on the Board of Directors of the Salolampi Foundation. He has an M.B.A from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, a J.D from William Mitchell College of Law, a B.A. from St. Olaf College, and holds numerous industry certifications.

Charles D. Gorecki is the Director of Subsurface R&D at the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) at the University of North Dakota (UND), where he is responsible for developing and managing programs and projects focused on conventional, unconventional, and enhanced oil and gas production; the geologic storage of CO₂; geothermal; and other energy and environmental research. He currently serves as the Program Manager for the Plains CO₂ Reduction (PCOR) Partnership, one of seven regional partnerships funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership Program. The PCOR Partnership Program is a three-phase, multiyear, multimillion-dollar program, focused on assessing the technical and economic feasibility of capturing and storing CO₂ emissions from stationary sources in the northern Great Plains and adjacent area. Under this program, Mr. Gorecki leads a multidisciplinary team of researchers working primarily on developing monitoring, verification, and accounting concepts and technologies for large-scale CO₂ storage (>1 million tons per year) in deep saline formations and oil fields and the characterization of the geologic formations in the PCOR Partnership region in preparation for the implementation of the commercial deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS). In addition to the PCOR Partnership Program, Mr. Gorecki also manages or oversees projects related to CO₂ storage capacity estimation, novel reservoir surveillance and CO₂ storage monitoring techniques, and unconventional oil and gas resource modeling, characterization, and testing.

Mr. Gorecki’s principal areas of interest and expertise include enhanced oil recovery (EOR), unconventional oil and gas research, and the geologic storage of CO₂, specifically in the areas of reservoir and simulation engineering. He has also led several other national and international projects associated with CO₂ storage, the nexus of water and CCS, and CO₂ EOR. Mr. Gorecki has authored and coauthored many papers and given presentations on a variety of topics associated with CO₂ EOR and CO₂ storage in the United States and throughout the world. He holds a B.S. degree in Geological Engineering from UND.

James Causey joined NTP in November 2014 and serves as the Executive Director of SpaceCom, an NTP annual event done in collaboration with NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the Houston economic development community. In this capacity, he oversees the strategic direction and day to day operations of all aspects of the event. He coordinates the activities of the Board of Advisors and Industry Advisory Committee setup to focus on event content and attendee experience. He also accesses the professional resources of NTP for sales, operations and marketing to assist the dedicated team of SpaceCom.

Prior to joining NTP, James had over 30 years of diverse experience in varied business and event management roles. Most recently, he was President, Public Sector Media Group at 1105 Media in Vienna, Va. He has held other senior-executive positions at market-leading organizations, including Landmark Communications, Sabot Publishing, Ernst & Young and Cadmus Communications. James has an MBA from University of Maryland and BSc from Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK.