Leadership
Founding Partners
James Hoecker, Senior Counsel WASHINGTON, DC
PROJECT MANAGER: Jim will be the IPRO Team Lead and Project Manager. Inside and outside government, Jim’s career has focused his career on energy delivery infrastructure, including electric transmission and gas and oil pipelines. He has worked on issues of infrastructure development and rate regulation, demand response and environmental law. He has served as FERC’s Assistant General Counsel for gas and oil litigation, Assistant General Counsel for rulemaking and legislative analysis and later, a President appointee Commissioner and FERC Chairman. In subsequent private law practice, Jim founded and managed two influential non-profit advocacy organizations in the energy space.
HUSCH BLACKWELL, WASHINGTON, DC
Emil Peña, Senior Advisor HOUSTON, TX
CYBERSECURITY AND ENERGY POLICY CONSULTANT: Emil Peña serves as Executive Director of the Global Energy Safety Institute, an organization transitioning NASA space program knowledge and technologies into the energy sector for oil, gas, utilities and renewables. He previously served in the Clinton Administration, in the U.S. Department of Energy as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy overseeing the Office of Natural Gas and Petroleum Technology in the Office of Fossil Energy and was responsible for administering oil and gas programs, including research and development, planning and environmental analysis, and import and export LNG activities. Emil serves on the Board of the North American Electricity Standards Board.
HOUSTON
Thomas Penn HOUSTON, TX
CHIEF TECHNICAL OFFICER: Tom will be the IPRO CTO. One of IPRO’s functions consists of the activities and staff engaged in the Cyber Performance Assessment, or “CPA,” administered by the CTO. For more than 39 years, Tom has served at various senior management levels in the oil and gas industry providing technical leadership in all aspects of industrial control systems and their related cybersecurity components. Tom will oversee IPRO’s overarching technology infrastructure and will be responsible for creating relevant technology-related policies including ensuring standards are met and communicating with employees, stakeholders, and members to ensure our company’s technologies are used appropriately.
HOUSTON, TX
Randall Stremmel
HOUSTON, TX
PIPELINE ASSET INTEGRITY/OPERATIONS EXPERT: Randall Stremmel has been involved with integrity services in the energy sector for more than 20 years. Randall holds many credentials with national governing bodies from API, AWS, NACE, STI and ASNT, and is a voting member on several API integrity committees. He has spoken at several industrial conferences over the many aspects of quality, digital solutions for integrity, and asset integrity in the energy industry, along with having several articles published around the world. Randall also has consulted on a real time inspection-based technology, to help the industry improve the data acquisition in the field.
RESILIENT PATH SOLUTIONS, HOUSTON
Wyatt Pemberton
HOUSTON, TX
ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE/OPERATIONS EXPERT: Wyatt has +15 years’ experience managing power generation assets on the North American Bulk Electric System and +5 years’ experience developing energy infrastructure projects. He brings to IPRO a robust understanding of the electric/gas relationship, as well as what Critical Infrastructure Protection represents from the physical and cyber side of the industry. Having served on the Northwest Power Pool Operating Committee for many years, as well as experienced numerous NERC, FERC and regional ISO/RTO audits, Wyatt represents the business and execution aspects of IPRO’s efforts.
RESILIENT PATH SOLUTIONS, HOUSTON
Legal Counsel
Fred Jauss, IV, Senior Counsel WASHINGTON, DC
PIPELINE COUNSEL AND EXPERT: For more than 15 years, Fred has guided energy clients around the globe through sophisticated supply regulations. He represents wind and solar electricity generators, oil producers and refiners, shippers, marketers and consumers on matters before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), state public utility commissions, and state and federal courts.
HUSCH BLACKWELL, WASHINGTON, DC
Erik Dullea, DENVER, CO
CYBERSECURITY EXPERT AND COUNSEL: With a lengthy military background, Erik’s insight into the intelligence community ties directly into his ability to advise government contractors on transactional matters, bid protests, and civil litigation. Erik holds an advanced degree in cybersecurity law to bolster 20 years of on-the- job-experience in military intelligence with an academic foundation and is involved with many professional intelligence-sharing organizations.
HUSCH BLACKWELL, DENVER
Mindi Giftos, Partner MADISON, WI
CYBER AND DATA EXPERT/COUNSEL: Mindi is the leader of both the firm’s IoT/Blockchain and Data Privacy, Cybersecurity & Breach Response teams. Mindi collaborates with clients on a broad range of privacy and security issues including IoT product development and launch, open source policies, compliance and transactional issues, trade secret matters, licensing, data breach preparedness, and litigating disputes in state and federal courts as well as before the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.
HUSCH BLACKWELL, MADISON