Pramod Bengani is Operations Excellence Leader with significant experience and expertise in turning around manufacturing organizations, Utilities operations, Wastewater systems, and Water Conservation. For over 25 year, he has worked at Ascend Performance Material, Alvin site. Prior to that, he worked at Amoco Refinery (now Marathon) in Texas City. He has managed assets owned by multiple companies including Lyondell, Cyanco, Eastman, Novus, Huntsman, and Indorama. He currently serves as site Guest Relations Leader, and supports Ascend’s energy & water sustainability programs.

Prior to TIEPP, Pramod has served on the board of Texas IOF since 2015, and has been a speaker at IOF sessions. Pramod is a Chemical Engineer by training, having completed his undergraduate studies from IIT in India. He did his Masters in Chemical Engineering from Texas A & M and MBA from University of Houston Clearlake. He is certified Lean 6-sigma Black Belt and resides in Pearland Texas.

Jack Buehler is a Principal Engineer for Utilities, Energy, GHG for Shell. For the past 15 years Jack has helped Shell identify energy and GHG reduction opportunities for assets and new projects. He is now supporting New energy projects (renewable energy). He has broad experience working with Downstream refining and chemicals, Upstream, Integrated Gas and LNG. He has conducted energy studies at all the Shell North and South America chemical and refinery sites and has supported JVs and 3rd party studies. Prior to joining Shell, Jack worked for Union Carbide and Dow with many roles including Operations, start-up of three ethylene crackers, Engineering, Feedstock purchasing, and supporting negotiations on two large JVs.

Jack is member of American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the Ethylene Producers Committee and has chaired the EPC Fundamentals session and EPC Process control sessions at the annual EPC conference. Jack has a B.S in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware.

George Chen is an Energy Technology Engineer working with Chevron Pipeline and Power in Houston. He graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering. For the last 9 years George has worked with various Chevron facilities on identifying “no or low cost” opportunities with steam system optimization to help reduce energy consumption and GHG. He provides central support on steam system related issues at the Chevron Refineries as well as Lubricant and Oronite facilities.

Previous to his current assignment, he worked 18 years as a Design Engineer and Project Engineer at the El Segundo Refinery; supporting Routine and Turnaround Maintenance work, small capital projects, and energy management efforts. George is a power user of the Visual MESA steam/utility optimization software that is utilized by Chevron U.S. Refineries.

John Curry is an Engineering Consultant for Energy, Utilities and Combustion Equipment for CITGO Petroleum. For the past 15 years John has developed best practices for Energy Programs to aid in day to day optimization programs at the CITGO Corpus Christ Refinery. These programs have helped the refinery reach and maintain first quartile Energy Intensity Index (EII) rating with Solomon and Associates since 2006 as well as achieve “Energy Star Certification” through the DOE the past few years. John is the corporate Fired Equipment SME and helps the other CITGO refinery sites with process heater troubleshooting, optimization and revamps. He has broad experience working with downstream refining, combustion equipment and process chemicals, upstream natural gas plants and midstream pipelines.

Prior to joining CITGO, John worked for Conoco, Koch Pipeline, John Zink Company, and Betz Process Chemicals with many roles including Operations Engineering, Project Engineering and Management, and Technical Sales. John is a member of American Petroleum Institute Subcommittee for Heat Transfer Equipment developing industry standards and is the current Chairman of API Standard 535, “Burners for Fired Heaters”. He was a previous member of the Texas Industries of the Future Advisory Council out of which evolved the TIEEP Advisory Council. John has a B.S in Petroleum Engineering and an MBA from Texas Tech University.

Dr. Gavin Dillingham is Director for Clean Energy Policy and Director of the US DOE’s Combined Heat and Power TAP. Dr. Dillingham joined HARC in 2012 where he leads efforts focusing on policy and programs to improve the climate resilience of power infrastructure and built environment. He has worked climate related matters for the last twenty years in the private and public sector. This work includes working with city’s and states to identify, develop and implement appropriate policies and programs to support climate action planning and greenhouse gas mitigation.

His current work includes developing climate risk mitigation strategies, climate action decision making and planning, and clean energy finance. He is the principal investor for multiple projects including DOEs Solar Energy Technology Office grant on solar+storage in low income neighborhoods and developing TX SECO’s Clean Energy Platform. He is working on a new HARC business venture to develop climate risk analytics to lead scenario planning for the energy sector. Education and Certification: Dr. Dillingham received his PhD in Political Science from Rice University in 2008. He holds the Climate Change Professional certifications from the Association of Climate Change Officers and the Sustainability Associate from the Institute for Sustainable Professionals.

Dr. Carlos Gamarra is a Research Scientist at HARC and Assistant Director of the US DOE’s Combined Heat and Power TAP. Carlos joined HARC in 2017 where he leads applied research on energy system integration both at the community and building levels. He has over 14 years of experience in different research and engineering positions in the energy field.

His research is focused on real-life applications of optimization and risk analysis techniques to energy systems integration with cost savings, energy efficiency, resiliency, and decarbonization goals. He leads multi-year DOE-funded work to provide technical assistance to potential Combined Heat and Power system users and to develop a public tool to support the identification of profitable opportunities to develop clean and resilient community energy systems (district energy and microgrids).

Carlos holds a Ph.D. in Community Microgrids, an M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering, and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering. He is also a licensed Professional Engineer in Texas and a Certified Energy Manager.