Who We Are

Thomas W. Smith (Tom) is Caterpillar’s Power Solutions Director of Energy Development.

Tom leads a development and field-based team of experts responsible for growing and supporting Caterpillar’s Energy as a Service and Microgrid businesses. His sales and development team also supports the sales and service of Caterpillar’s generation products, including Distributed Power, Economic Dispatch/Resiliency and Combined Heat and Power (CHP). His team works with dealers, customers, and partners to develop and provide the best overall solution of power generation equipment and related products/services.

Upon graduating from Miami University, Ohio, Tom began his career with Westinghouse Electric Corp. In addition to Westinghouse Tom has held positions of increasing responsibility with Rolls Royce Energy Systems, Equity Office Properties, Endurant Energy, and Professional Power Products Inc. Prior to joining Caterpillar, Tom was with Sterling & Wilson Power Solutions as President and CEO focusing on development, engineering and construction of micro-grid systems including cogeneration, hybrid, demand response and resiliency technologies. Tom is also very active in Power Generation industry associations including the United States Combined Heat and Power Alliance (President), Cogeneration World Coalition (Board Member) Northeast Clean Heat and Power Initiative and Midwest Cogeneration Association (Board Member).

Jen Derstine is the VP of Marketing and Distribution, at Capstone Green Energy, which is a California-based manufacturer of microturbine engines for combined heat and power and microgrid applications. Jen leads the company’s federal and state policy priorities and manages business development with geographically exclusive distributors.

Anna Pavlova serves as senior Vice President for Strategy, Market Development and Sustainability at CarbonQuest – a company that helps buildings and facilities decarbonize with Carbon Capture.  In her role, Anna looks into the future of the company and the CCUS market and enables the company to build the new CO2 utilization and sequestration industry with its partners.

Prior to her venture into the start-up world, Anna held executive positions at global companies leading the energy transition and decarbonization sustainability and policy work at Schneider Electric and Johnson Controls.  Anna had also served as a senior advisor at a boutique climate consulting firm Co2Efficient with focus on innovation in climate space.

Anna has multiple recognitions including Globe Street’s Woman of Influence 2023 and CRE Tech Influencer award.

Gearoid Foley has worked for the past three decades in the construction, HVAC and onsite power industries. He has collaborated with the Department of Energy, national labs, various public utility and state energy agencies, project developers, energy service companies and major equipment manufacturers among others.

His experience includes new technology demonstration, applications engineering, project management and policy education relating to on-site power generation, energy efficiency, microgrids and energy resiliency. Mr. Foley has presented papers and given seminars at national and regional conferences for multiple organizations.

Mr. Foley founded Integrated CHP Systems Corp. in 2003 which provides consulting services to the on-site energy industry. He is a founding member of the US CHPA, Programs Committee Chair of ASHRAE’s Combined Heat & Power System’s technical committee and is the New Jersey Director and a Senior Technical Advisor for DOE’s On-Site Technical Assistance Partnership. He coauthored the 2015 ASHRAE CHP Design Guide as well as a published book entitled ‘Sustainable On-Site CHP Systems’ published by McGraw Hill and has served as peer reviewer for DOE’s Distributed Energy program.

Al Clark is Chief Executive Officer of Northeast-Western Energy Systems (NES-WES). NES-WES has a long history as INNIO Jenbacher’s largest authorized sales and service partner in the America’s providing integrated combined heat and power and distributed generation solutions supported with extensive application engineering, project management, parts and service support.

Al has successfully developed and grown businesses in heavy-duty industrial, power generation, marine and on highway transportation industries. His experience includes business development, application engineering, and product support as well as financial management. He was previously Executive Chairman of Penn Power Group, LLC which owns and operates multiple businesses including NES-WES.

Charles (Chuck) Miller is the Founder and CEO of NgenX Energy Solutions and serves as a Principal for Low carbon Outreach for Washington Gas and Light ( WGL Energy) where he is responsible for leading the companies initiatives around carbon reduction through the implementation of Combined Heat and Power solutions fuels by natural gas, Hydrogen and Renewable Natural Gas. He has more than 25 years of energy,energy efficiency, and renewable energy experience along with project development and structured finance experience. Chuck has developed energy and CHP projects in multiple vertical markets includinghealthcare, higher education, industrial and commercial, agriculture, and federal. Prior to the launch of NgenX Chuck was tasked with deploying capital for the non- regulated energy division of Washington Gaswhere he developed more than $150 million of projects over the course of the four years. He has subsequently been heavily engaged in the indoor agriculture space most recently facilitating a 2MW / 900 Ton Combined heat and power plant for a licensed medical grower in Maryland and a 5MW 1400 Ton CHP plant in NY. Chuck has worked closely with leading MSO’s in the facility construction for hundreds of thousands of square fee of canopy and is now tasked with supporting project development in the WGL territory with a strong focus on creating energy efficient data centers and renewable gas consumption.

Emily Robertson is Business Development Lead with Renew Energy Partners where she is working to decarbonize the commercial and industrial sector through funding energy efficiency projects and microgrids. She has nearly a decade of energy, energy efficiency, and renewable energy experience as well as project development experience. Prior to joining Renew, Emily worked for nearly eight years in marketing and sales roles in the CHP space. Emily has developed distributed generation projects in multiple vertical markets including healthcare, higher education, commercial & industrial, and agriculture.