Leadership Team
Corporate
Walter Howard
Chief Executive Officer
Walter brings extensive experience in business development, project finance, and operations within the electric and water utility industries and has held CEO, COO, CFO, and SVP executive positions with utility leaders including General Electric, US Generating (an affiliate of Pacific Gas & Electric and Bechtel), Noble Environmental Power, GE Capital and J. Makowski Co. Inc (partly owned by Duke Power). His career span more than 30 years of successfully executed technology development and implementation; project development and execution; and project finance.
Danny Hay
Chief Financial Officer
As CFO and VP Finance for small public oil and gas companies, Mr. Hay brings with him extensive experience in oil and gas accounting, finance and public company reporting. Danny was also a Senior Manager with Grant Thornton LLP where he was leader of the oil and gas business unit, specializing in audit taxation and consulting services that included public documents and filings. Danny holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Calgary and is a Chartered Accountant.
Richard Fish
President
Mr. Fish has held senior executive positions where he successfully drove revenue over the hundreds of millions of dollars, shortened sales cycles, developed national marketing programs, distribution channels and global service coverage programs. As Chief Marketing and Sales Officer at Workhorse Custom Chassis (2000 – 2003) Mr. Fish led global sales, strategic partnerships and acquisitions. Mr. Fish was Sr. Vice President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer with Universal Trailer Corp. (2003-2005), the largest manufacturer of specialty trailers in North America where he was responsible for the worldwide sales and marketing efforts. In his last position, Mr. Fish held the position of Portfolio CEO and Operating Partner with Monomoy Capital Partners (2005 – 2008), a private equity fund.
Plasma Gasification
Kevin Willerton
Vice President, Strategic Alliances & Business Development
Mr. Willerton brings to Alter NRG 23 years of experience in the electricity industry, the majority of which has been in a business development capacity. He was VP Business Development at ENMAX where he led the company’s entry into wind power. He held numerous roles over a 10-year period at TransAlta including business development, marketing, commodity risk management and engineering. Mr. Willerton is a Professional Engineer, has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Saskatchewan and an MBA from the University of Calgary.
Kent Hicks
Vice President, Operations
Most recently Mr. Hicks worked in senior roles for Petro Canada, Synenco Energy and OPTI Canada. He has a proven track record in constructing, starting up, and operating energy projects including significant experience in gasification.
Most recently Mr. Hicks was the Vice President, Downstream Operations for Synenco Energy and General Manager in Petro Canada’s Fort Hills oilsands project. Mr. Hicks also served as the Commissioning and Start-up Manager during the early phases of the OPTI / Nexen Long Lake project, the first gasification project in the Alberta oilsands. Mr. Hicks is a professional engineer with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla.
Mark Wright
Vice President, Strategic Alliances & Business Development
Mr. Wright is a consummate executive with over 23 years of domestic and international experience in business operations, sales management, and product and service marketing for both start-up and growth corporations. Mark brings a deep background in large scale power project sales and management.
Mark started his career with GE holding varied roles in power systems sales and marketing. Following GE, he was VP Sales and Marketing for Williman Power - leading North American sales and marketing for all phases of construction, start-up, commissioning, and maintenance of Combine Cycle / Simple Cycle power projects.
Mr. Shinichi Osada
Technology and Operations Consultant
As the retired General Manager of Hitachi Metals, Mr. Osada was engaged in the development of the Eco-Valley plasma gasification facility in Utashinai, Japan. Mr. Osada has over thirty six years of operations and general management experience with Hitachi Metals and was part of the initial development partnership for Hitachi’s integration of the Westinghouse Plasma Technology at Eco-Valley, Utashinai. He was also instrumental in the design and development of both plasma gasification facilities operating in Japan (Eco-Valley Utashinai and Mihama-Mikata). Mr. Osada has been contributing technical and operational know-how about plasma gasification technology to Alter NRG since 2009.