We're On A Mission To Power The Future

Austin Skipworth

VP Corporate Finance

Austin’s experience includes 15 years of experience in the energy industry.  He began his career as a manufacturing engineer at General Electric and spent 6 years focused on reducing costs and cycle times in the repair of GE gas turbines.  Following an MBA, Austin spent 5 years in investment banking at RBC Capital Markets where he was assisting oil & gas clients in the analysis and execution of capital markets solutions, including over $25 billion in closed deals.  Most recently, Austin spent 4 years at Ranger Oil as a Director of Finance with responsibilities including corporate modeling, variance analysis, and incentive planning. He is an accomplished leader with more than 9 years of experience in financial analysis and strategic planning. He has an engineering undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University, and he was a Jones Scholar while completing his MBA from Rice University.

Rob McLellan

Senior Vice President

Rob has over 30 years of experience in project management, contract management, and engineering design/development. Rob specializes in construction techniques and practices, including construction of multi-million wind, hydroelectric, solar, turbine, and thermal plants and oil refinery to completion. Rob currently serves as Bridgelink’s Sr. Vice President, he is eager to leverage expertise in scheduling, construction, and constructability reviews. Rob holds a master’s in project management, LLB Construction Law degree, and a Master of Business degree.

Clay Johnson

VP, Business Development

Clay has over a decade of experience in the energy industry. His impressive career includes working for several well-known large EPC companies and negotiating project development for 40MW-500MW facilities. Contracts range in value from $25MM – $200MM. As VP of Business Development, Clay is passionate about setting goals for company growth, developing relationships, and assuring client satisfaction. He is known for his strong communication skills and amiable personality. Clay has been able to secure pre-qualifications with over 120 of the largest energy companies in the U.S. and has established Bridgelink in the industry from an acquisition standpoint. He also has secured relationships with all the major buyers of renewable energy projects over the last 4 years.

Dennis Benevides

Head of Power Desk

Dennis is a 30-year veteran of the USA electric power business. Dennis is Head of Power Desk at Bridgelink. Dennis began his professional career as an electrical engineer at Pacific Gas & Electric in San Francisco where he spent 12 years with responsibilities in the areas of Transmission and Distribution Planning, along with Transmission Policy and Contracts experience. Dennis was involved in the inter-utility efforts to restructure the California market to support retail competition prior to the 1998 opening of the California market. In 1997, Dennis relocated to Houston, Texas and has spent the last 20+ years in commercial functions at multi-regional energy companies (Enron, and Direct Energy) with responsibilities in all the deregulated USA regional independent system operator regions (ERCOT, CAISO, PJM, ISO-NE, ISO-NY, MISO and SPP). Dennis’ responsibilities have included wholesale market trading; retail book risk management and hedging; gas fired asset M&A, integration and management; renewable energy power purchase and C&I agreement contract negotiation, structuring, hedging and management. Dennis also acquired and managed an ERCOT retail energy provider (TruSmart Energy) which was a market leader in the launch of time of use smart meter enabled retail electricity product to end use residential and commercial customers. Dennis has led teams which have added more than $500 million of incremental commercial value to various corporate entities over his career. Dennis has a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering (Power) from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and an MBA-Finance degree from California State University, East Bay.

Anoush Farhangi

Director of Risk Mitigation

Dr. Anoush Farhangi has experience in the energy industry. Anoush’s has worked in portfolio risk management, structuring, pricing, data analytics and systems development. Before joining Bridgelink Commodities, Anoush worked at Koch Energy Services where he helped create a Retail Energy Provider (REP) to self-serve Koch’s own facilities as well as structure energy products and PPA’s for large industrial and commercial customers. Prior to Koch, Anoush was at Walmart where he helped create the energy infrastructure for one of the largest retailers in the world. The infrastructure included the risk, pricing, and load forecasting systems and the integration of billing and usage data into the data analytics system. Anoush utilized Walmart stores’ building automation systems to participate in various load response and demand control programs in multiple jurisdictions.

• In the 30-year span of his experience in the energy industry Anoush has held multiple entrepreneurial and analytical positions working with a diverse set of companies such as Direct Energy, TruSmart Energy, Enron and Southern California Edison.

• Anoush is actively working with regulators assisting with creating new rules and improving market efficiency. Anoush is a sitting member of ERCOT’s Wholesale Market Subcommittee and has held positions with Reliability and Operations Subcommittee and Protocol Revision Subcommittee of ERCOT.

• Anoush holds a PhD in applied economics from Purdue University and BS in Electrical Engineering from Washington University in St Louis.

Kevin Barber

Director of Origination

Kevin Barber has over 30 years of experience in energy trading, risk management, retail, and government affairs. Kevin spent over 25 years in energy commodity trading and banking while holding positions with increasing responsibility before launching Veteran Energy, LLC, first VA certified 100% Veteran Owned Retail Electric Provider licensed in the State of Texas. He joined Bridgelink in 2021 as the Head of Business Development and Retail Trading, and currently serves as Bridgelink’s Director of Origination.

Mohammad Albaijat

Dir. of Transmission Studies

Dr. Albaijat has over 25 years’ experience in power system operations and technology, power markets and interconnection studies. Dr. Albaijat started his career in 1993 as electrical engineer designing and implementing SCADA systems, medium voltage substation, water pumping station control. In 1999, he joined ABB as Senior power systems applications software engineer where he extensively participated in design, implement, and support energy management system (EMS) and market management system (MMS). These platforms contain several complex software applications to control and operate electric grids as well as electricity markets. EMS and MMS applications include scheduling of Day-Ahead, Scheduling of Hour Ahead, Scheduling of real time dispatch, congestion management, load forecast, wind predictor, solar predicator, battery storage operation, contingency analysis, line ratings, SPS, PMUs, State Estimator, network constrained unit commitment and network constrained economic dispatch. Since 2005, Dr. Albaijat worked as consultant and SME on major ISO/RTOs projects as he was one of the core engineers designed ERCOT market protocols and similar work at CAISO. In EirGrid project Dr. Albaijat was SME of all power systems applications design. Dr. Albaijat was part of major ISO/RTO projects in US and international as subject matter expert in core applications. Dr. Albaijat executed detailed analysis and studies on solar and BESS development projects like PSSE steady state, short circuit analysis, stability analysis, congestion, and curtailments, PVsyst solar energy assessment. Dr. Albaijat worked on projects for CAISO, ERCOT, PJM, NYISO, EirGrid, KPX, and eIMO.

James Giovas

Dir. of Project Management

James Giovas leads Bridgelink Power’s Construction Business segment with overseeing procurement, construction, and project management for all projects, as well as key domestic functions including collaborating with Governance on environmental strategy and compliance. During his time at Bridgelink Power, James has been involved in all aspects of the development of wind, solar, and storage. A 44-year veteran of the power industry, James has worked on several key industries such as Nuclear and Fossil Power Generation Plants, Petrochemical Industry (upstream and downstream plants), Telecommunications Infrastructure, Mining & Processing industries. Sixteen years of international assignments in New Zealand, Indonesia, Canada, UAE, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Greece, UK, France, Italy, Germany, and Benelux countries have enabled him to expand and diversify his experience and skills. Before joining Bridgelink Power, James was a Director of EPC Projects at First Solar, previously a Field Engineering and EPC Project Manager at Bechel Corporation.

Tony Spain

Operations Analyst

Tony Spain is an experienced energy professional with 18 years of expertise in solar, oil, and natural gas. He has a successful track record of bidding, managing, and constructing large projects for major energy companies such as Devon Energy, EOG, XTO, Chevron, and Shell. In the past 3 years, Tony has been involved in the construction and financials of large-scale solar projects totaling over 500MW with total projects exceeding $300MM. He is experienced in the energy sector and is well-versed in both the operational and financial aspects of the industry.

Connie Caramonta

Mgr., Land Acquisitions

Connie Monschein has 22 years of experience in surface land acquisition and permitting with regulatory agencies. Before joining the land development team at Bridgelink, Connie successfully managed a crew of 20+ landmen acquiring pad sites, access roads, pipelines, frac lines and power lines as owner and operator of a brokerage. Her crew provided service for the surface land department at Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. for their operations in the Haynesville Shale, Tuscaloosa Marine Shale, and Eagleford Shale for over 10 years.

Garrett Smithhart

Mgr., Project Development

Garrett Smithhart has 10 years of experience in land development, including extensive knowledge of surface use agreements and records management. Prior to joining Bridgelink’s land development team, Garrett worked for XTO Energy and ExxonMobil. Garrett holds a BA Liberal Arts from Texas Wesleyan University.

Tim Clark

Director, Human Resources

Tim Clark has over twenty years of experience in HR strategy, leadership development, and insurance plan design. Prior to joining Bridgelink, Tim worked for companies such as Kelly Services, Mid-Stream Oil & Gas Contractors, and FedEx. He is known for his expertise in enhancing employee engagement, improving HR response time and service quality, and successfully shepherding companies through periods of economic downturns.