Principals

Donald Paul Hodel, J.D., is Chairman and Senior Vice President for Strategy and Policy.  Mr. Hodel founded the predecessor companies to Summit in early 1989. Mr. Hodel served as the Under Secretary (sub-Cabinet post) of the U.S. Department of the Interior (1981-1982), Secretary (Cabinet Minister) of the U.S. Department of Energy (1982-1985) and later Secretary (Cabinet Minister) of the U.S. Department of the Interior (1985-1988). He was the Chairman of the U.S. Critical Materials Council (1985-1988). Mr.Hodel previously served as President of the North American Electric Reliability Council (“NERC”) (1978-1980). He served as the Administrator (Chief Executive Officer) of the Bonneville Power Administration (a large U.S. government-owned electric utility) from 1972 through 1977.  Mr. Hodel has served on the Boards of Directors of several publicly traded and privately held companies, numerous public foundations and institutes. Mr. Hodel was formerly on the Board of, and later on the Advisory Council of, the Electric Power Research Institute (“EPRI”) and the World Energy Congress.
 

 

 

Earl Gjelde, P.E., is Chief Executive Officer of Summit.  Mr. Gjelde was the Under (now called “Deputy”) Secretary (sub-Cabinet Post) and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Department of the Interior (1985-1989), the Chief of Staff and Chief Operating Officer for the U.S. Department of Energy (1982-1985), and the Deputy Administrator (Chief Operating Officer) of the Bonneville Power Administration.  He served as Chief of Staff for the U.S. Critical Materials Counsel (1985-1988), as special envoy for President Reagan to China (1987) and as the Deputy Chief of Mission for the US-Japan Science and Technology Treaty negotiations (1986-1988).  Mr. Gjelde is on the Board of Directors of the U.S. Energy Association and U.S. World Energy Congress with extensive activities throughout the world, AMEN Properties (a publicly traded energy and office complex company), and the National Wilderness Institute.  He has served as a director on the Boards of CIGRE (an international high-voltage transmission organization), the World Energy Congress, and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).  He was an officer of Waste Management, Inc., then the world’s largest environmental services company, and the President and CEO of several of its subsidiaries (1989-1992).

 

 

Eric Redman, J.D., is President of the Summit Power Group, LLC, and of Summit Carbon Capture, LLC. He is the former chair of the Energy Practice Group at a major U.S. and international law firm.  He works extensively on Summit’s coal gasification projects with carbon capture, as well as other types of clean energy and carbon capture projects, and with several national environmental groups on a variety of climate-related matters.  Mr. Redman founded his former law firm’s Clean Energy Technology Practice, and is a frequent speaker and author on coal gasification, carbon management, and climate matters.  Mr. Redman began his career as a legislative assistant to the late U.S. Senator Warren G. Magnuson (D-WA) and wrote “The Dance of Legislation,” a best-selling account of Congressional enactment of the National Health Service Corps.  He was educated at Harvard College, Oxford University (as a Rhodes Scholar), and Harvard Law School.  He was chosen for Best Lawyers in America for energy matters in 2007, 2008, and 2009. Mr. Redman recently joined the Board of Directors of the Gasification Technologies Council.

 

 

 

Thomas Cameron is Senior Vice President, Engineering and Project Management of Summit.  He is a principal and founder of Power Development Associates, LLC and Managing Director of Cameron & Associates, a project management and engineering firm.  Mr. Cameron has 20 years of experience in the power industry and has held positions in a variety of disciplines.  Mr. Cameron was Project Director for Blythe Energy, LLC, a 520 MW combined cycle facility (Summit project) using the Siemens technology; he is currently Project Director for the Lake Side Project, a 543 MW combined cycle facility (Summit project) using Siemens technology, Summit Westward Project, a 520 MW combined cycle facility (Summit project) using Siemens technology and the Cliffs Project, a 300 MW combined cycle facility (Summit project) using the Siemens technology.  Prior to this, Mr. Cameron held assignments as Project Manager, in charge of design, procurement, equipment manufacturing, construction, and commissioning, of several large gas turbine power projects, including the 340 MW simple cycle and the 520 MW combined cycle Bridgeport Energy Project (a Summit project), using the Siemens technology.  During execution of these projects, Mr. Cameron’s responsibilities included project management, cost and schedule control, technical and commercial contract negotiations, selection and coordination of vendors, engineering firms, and erection contractors, supervision of engineering and site staff, preparation of bid specifications, coordination of construction management, startup coordination and customer interfaces.  He also has primary responsibility for the integration of fuel and electric transmission.

Heather Redman, J.D., is Senior Vice President, Operations and Legal, of Summit.  Ms. Redman handles all legal and administrative matters including the legal aspects of project financing and corporate structure matters.  Ms. Redman serves on several boards of directors and boards of advisors of high technology companies.  Ms. Redman has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, finance and corporate strategy.  Ms. Redman held the position of Executive and Senior Vice President at each of AtomShockwave, Inc., Getty Images, Inc., and PhotoDisc, Inc., with responsibility for mergers and acquisitions and financings (including both public offerings of debt and equity and private financings).  She led the negotiations for the successful sale of these companies and negotiated many acquisitions on the buy side while at Getty and AtomShockwave.  At Getty (which was dual-headquartered in London and Seattle), Ms. Redman worked extensively outside of the United States.  In addition, Ms. Redman has been responsible for substantial operational groups, including all product acquisitions at Atom, and acted as COO at Atom.  Ms. Redman has served on the Board of Directors of the Washington Software Alliance and the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association.  Ms. Redman holds a law degree (with distinction) from Stanford University and practiced law prior to joining industry.

Eric Gjelde, P.E., is Senior Vice President, Finance, of Summit, and the principal shareholder of Meridian Northwest, Ltd. (1993 to present), which manages investments.  Mr. Gjelde is responsible for Summit’s financial management, local government and community relations, land acquisition, and local services, including new power plant site development.  Mr. Gjelde has been an owner of and has separately held senior management positions in commercial real estate development, asset management and financial management worldwide.  He was principal officer/shareholder of three privately held real estate consulting, development, brokerage and investment firms that acted as managing general partners for properties totaling 1,190,000 square feet and $160 million in acquisition cost.  Under his direction, these firms performed asset and property management for 1,320,000 square feet of retail, office and industrial property and participated in commercial real estate joint venture development with major Japanese banks and trading companies.  He was asset manager for the Carpenters’ Union retirement fund of Hawaii.  Mr. Gjelde also owned and managed a heavy equipment company in California and a John Deere Agricultural Equipment Company in Idaho.  He has extensive experience in commercial investing, brokerage, financing, development, asset and property management, general and financial management in the heavy equipment sector and in providing financial management services.