About the Judges
Master of Ceremonies & Judging Coordinator
Neil Fleming
Vice President, Strategy
Platts
Neil Fleming was editorial vice president and co-head of Information and Trading Services for Platts from 1997 to 2002; prior to that he ran the group's real-time news service for the oil sector, Platts Global Alert. From 1992 to 1994 he was Platts' Middle East correspondent, based in Sharjah in the UAE. Fleming also worked for United Press International in Africa, first as East Africa manager and later as bureau chief in South Africa. From 1985 to 1989 he worked as a market and news reporter for Platts in London. He has won a number of awards, including the 1995 International Association for Energy Economists' award for excellence in written journalism.
Fleming was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the UK, where he received a First Class Honours degree in modern languages, and at the University of Vienna, where he spent a postgraduate year. He led and coordinated the judging panel for this year's awards.
2007 Platts Global Energy Awards Judges
A. Bjarne Moe
Director General
Norway's Ministry of Industry
A. Bjarne Moe has been involved with the oil and gas sector for more than 25 years. He has worked for the Norwegian Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. In 1988, Moe was appointed as a director general with responsibility for the oil and gas sector. He has also served as a diplomat. In addition, Moe has lectured at the Norwegian School of Business & Administration and has served as chairman and as a member of numerous committees concerned with activities in the industry. He has also chaired several bilateral commissions involving other countries. Moe holds a degree in statistics and economics, and a degree in economics from the University of Oslo.
Larry F. Altenbaumer
Independent Consultant
Larry F. Altenbaumer retired April 1, 2004 as President of Illinois Power, a regulated electric and natural gas energy delivery company with approximately 650,000 customers, and Executive Vice President, Regulated Energy Delivery, Dynegy Inc. Illinois Power became a subsidiary of Dynegy Inc., headquartered in Houston, Texas, on February 2, 2000, when Illinova merged with Dynegy, a transaction led by Mr. Altenbaumer for Illinova.
Subsequent to his retirement, Mr. Altenbaumer has provided business advisory and consulting services to several organizations both inside and outside of the energy industry. Currently, Mr. Altenbaumer serves as an independent director for the Southwest Power Pool, the Magnum Coal Company and the MYR Group, Inc.; he provides consulting support to ArcLight Capital Partners, a private equity firm focused on the energy industry with nearly $5 billion of investment under management; he also serves as an Advisory Board Member of Continental Carbonic, International Control Services and IEI Financial Services; and he is the Fund Manager of InDecatur Ventures, LLC, a private venture capital investment organization focused on economic development opportunities in the Decatur area. He served as a judge for the 2006 Platts Global Energy Awards.
Mr. Altenbaumer received a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering/computer science from the University of Illinois in 1970.
Upon graduation, Mr. Altenbaumer joined Illinois Power in 1970 as an assistant electrical engineer in data processing. He held various positions in data processing, including leadership for the company's first on-line customer information system, a system developed in-house that served Illinois Power for nearly twenty years. Mr. Altenbaumer was promoted to director-budgets and forecasts in 1978; was named manager of Illinois Power's first finance department in 1980 and held several positions in the financial area, including treasurer, controller, and chief financial officer. He was named senior vice president and chief financial officer of Illinois Power in 1992 and was elected chief financial officer, treasurer, and controller of Illinova upon its formation in 1994. He became president of Illinois Power in September 1999. His career with Illinois Power spanned nearly thirty-four years.
Mr. Altenbaumer serves on the Board of Decatur Memorial Health Systems and is a Trustee of the James Millikin Estate. He is also a member of the University of Illinois Foundation, the Decatur Public School District's Drop Out Task Force and the Board of the Energy Assistance Foundation. He was a 2003 recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the University of Illinois.
Mr. Altenbaumer is a native of Centralia, Illinois and currently resides in Decatur, Illinois, where he has lived for the past thirty-four years. He is married to the former Dheena Ratner, a native of Skokie, Illinois. They are the parents of two grown children and have two young grandsons.
Jim de Haseth
Former Vice President, Crude Oil Trading
Shell International Trading and Shipping Co. Ltd.
Jim de Haseth was with the Shell Group for more than 33 years. He studied chemical engineering at Delft and joined Shell in the Hague as development technologist and held several jobs in downstream oil, which included refinery technology and operations, scheduling, economics, and facility planning. Later moves into Supply and Trading spanned crude, fuels, and base oils and commercial products, specialties, and marine sales.
De Haseth was previously CEO of the global Marine Products business, before which he was supply manager for the Northern European cluster, managing director of Shell Rhine Supply and Trading and responsible for all product sales and purchases in nine European countries, and supply and trading director for Shell Nederland. He later joined Shell Trading as vice president crude oil trading in October 2000. Jim is now retired from Shell and is president/owner of a management consultant business.
Malcolm Keay
Senior Research Fellow
Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
Malcolm Keay is currently Director of the Energy and Climate Change Study for the World Energy Council and Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, a centre for advanced research into the social science aspects of energy issues. Between 2002 and 2005, he was Chief Executive of the World Coal Institute. His previous career covered a wide range of energy-related areas, including energy policy (he was Director of Energy Policy at the UK Department of Trade Industry in 1996-99), international energy affairs, energy regulation and energy consultancy.
Clare Spottiswoode, CBE
Clare is non-executive director of a number of companies. These include British Energy (Deputy-Chairman), Tullow Oil, BioFuels, Bergesen, and Gas Strategies (Chairman). She is also the 'Policyholder Advocate' for Aviva, negotiating on behalf of 1.1m policyholders their share of the 5+bn pounds inherited estate.
Clare is best known for her work as the UK's Gas Regulator between 1993 and 1998. She spear-headed the world's first introduction of choice and competition all the way down to the domestic level in either the gas or electricity industry, and this experience is now enabling other countries and other industries to emulate what has been done in the UK in ways appropriate to their own particular circumstances.
Following on from a degree in Mathematics and Economics at Clare College Cambridge, and then a Mellon fellow scholarship to do an M.Phil in economics at Yale University, Clare started her career as a Civil Servant in H.M. Treasury, before becoming an entrepreneur, first in importing business, and then as the founder of a software house specializing in vertical market software for business. She is the author of two computer books, and editor of two others, all of which were translated into Spanish. She also has an honorary Doctorate from Brunel University, and was honored in the 1999 New Year's Honours with a CBE for services to the gas industry.
Skila Harris
Board Member
Tennessee Valley Authority
Ms. Harris is a member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority. From November 1999 until March 2006, Ms. Harris served as one of three full-time members of the TVA Board of Directors. The Board was accountable for the day-to-day management and operation of the nation's largest public power corporation with revenues over $7 billion.
Ms. Harris was nominated to the TVA Board by President Bill Clinton and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate. By law, in March of this year the governance structure of the TVA Board was changed to a traditional corporate model consisting of 9 part-time directors. Ms. Harris will continue to serve as a part-time director until her 9 year-term expires in May 2008.
TVA is responsible for managing the Tennessee River system and the associated natural resources; supporting economic development in its service area which includes parts of seven states; and providing wholesale electricity to over 8.6 million customers. Beginning in 1999, TVA became fully self-financing and no longer receives government funds.
In addition to being on the TVA Board, Ms. Harris has held other energy-related positions in government. Prior to joining TVA she was Executive Director of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board under Secretaries Bill Richardson and Federico Pena. The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board was the highest ranking advisory board within the U.S. Department of Energy. Ms. Harris also worked at the Department of Energy from 1979 to 1980 on the program that preceded creation of the U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corporation. She then joined the Synthetic Fuels Corporation and served as a Project Officer until 1986.
Ms. Harris' only other government service was from 1993 until 1997 when she served as Special Assistant to Vice President Al Gore and Chief of Staff to Tipper Gore.
In addition to her government work, Ms. Harris served as Vice President for Development and Compliance for Steiner-Liff Iron and Metal Company in Nashville, Tennessee from 1989 until 1992. She also worked at Resource Planning Associates, a management consulting firm specializing in energy work and Tetra Tech, Inc. an engineering firm both in the Washington, DC area.
Ms. Harris has a Master's Degree in Legislative Affairs, Special Studies from George Washington University and a B.A. Degree in Government from Western Kentucky University
Khunying Thongtip Ratanarat
Senior Consultant / Advisor to the Petroleum Institute of Thailand.
M.E., Chemical Engineering,
B.E., Chemical Engineering, B.Sc.,
Chemistry (minor in Economics), University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Khunying Thongtip Ratanarat is now the Senior Consultant / Advisor to the Petroleum Institute of Thailand (PTIT) after her term as Executive Director expired. PTIT is an independent organization established under a non-profit foundation to help strengthen the development of Thailand's petroleum, petrochemical and related industries in human resource development, information service, technical service, and policy and regulatory issues.
Khunying Thongtip writes and directs PTIT training courses on oil and gas and petrochemicals economics. She has also been invited to give lectures and briefings on petroleum and petrochemicals to several organizations, public and private, as well as academic institutions. In 2005, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the University of Chiang Mai for Applied Geophysics.
Charles E. Bayless
Mr. Bayless is President of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology, a regional Campus of West Virginia University specializing in Engineering, Nursing, Athletic Coaching, Printing and General Education. Prior to Dec 27, 1999 Mr. Bayless was Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Illinova Corporation, and its' wholly owned subsidiary, Illinois Power Company, an electric and natural gas utility with more than half a million customers and approximately 4,500 megawatts of electricity generating capacity.
Prior to joining Illinova Corporation in June 1998, Mr. Bayless was Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Tucson Electric Power Company (UniSource Energy), from 1981 to 1989 Mr. Bayless was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Public Service Company of New Hampshire. Before that, he was employed by Consumers Power Company in Jackson, Michigan, first as an attorney, then as the Director of Nuclear Fuel Supply, and finally as the Director of Special Corporate Projects. Prior to that Mr. Bayless had summer jobs in line construction and at power plants at Kentucky Power and Pennsylvania Power and Light.
Mr. Bayless received his BSEE from West Virginia Institute of Technology in 1968. In 1971, he earned his MSEE, in power engineering, and in 1972 his law Degree, both from West Virginia University. He earned his MBA in 1977 from the Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Michigan.
Mr. Bayless is a Board Member of Commerce Energy. Primary Energy Inc., Pike Electric, Thermon, Inc. and the Ontario Power Authority. He is past Chairman of the Board of Independent Wireless One, a past Board Member of Patina Oil and Gas, where he was Chairman of the Audit Committee, a past Board Member of Dynegy, where, he has been Chairman of the Audit Committee and of the Governance and Nominating Committee and a past Board Member of Trigen Energy Inc., EPRI and EEI. In 1993, Financial World awarded Mr. Bayless its CEO of the Year Bronze Medal. Also in 1993, the Wall Street Transcript named Mr. Bayless the winner of its CEO of the Year Bronze Medal. In 1995, Financial World awarded Mr. Bayless its CEO of the Year Silver Medal. He is Chairman of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce Energy Committee and Chairman of the West Virginia Industrial Council.
Mr. Bayless's involvement with the Boy Scouts of America is extensive. He is a member of the National Advisory Board, a past member of the National Board of Directors, a Member and past Chairman of the Philmont Ranch Committee; a Board Member of the Buckskin Council and past President of the Catalina Council. He was Support Chairman for the Boy Scouts of America at the 1999 World Jamboree (held in Chile), was Program Chairman of the Boy Scouts of America 1997 National Jamboree and led the Project 2005 team at the 2001 Jamboree. Mr. Bayless was Chairman of the National Venture Exploring Committee and he is a recipient of the Boy Scouts Silver Beaver and silver Antelope Award and the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.
Mr. Bayless is also past Chairman of the Southern Arizona Leadership Council (a CEO Organization): a past Member of the University of Arizona Business School National Board of Advisors; a Member of the West Virginia University Engineering Academy; a past member of the Arizona Commission on Appellate Judicial Appointments, a past Board Member of the Public Utilities Reports, Inc.; and a past Board Member and Vice President of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Bayless is an inactive member of the Michigan and West Virginia Bar Associations; a member of Tau Beta Pi Engineering and Eta Kappa Nu Electric Engineering honorary fraternities and a member of the Phi Delta Phi Legal Fraternity; and an Eagle Scout.
Mr. Bayless is a native of Dunbar, West Virginia. He is married to the former Joan Schulter, a native of Allentown, Pennsylvania. They are the parents of one daughter Lisa and one son, Charles.
Thomas F. Armistead
Thomas F. Armistead is senior editor for energy and environment at Engineering News Record, McGraw-Hill Construction's weekly news magazine of engineering and construction.
He has been associated with power-industry construction almost continuously since 1969, when he started as an apprentice lineman on construction of American Electric Power Co.'s 765-kV transmission line in Indiana.
He constructed transmission lines and substations for seven years in the U.S. and Indonesia before becoming manager of public relations for a power and industrial general contractor.
He has been with ENR since 1998, writing about the boom and bust in independent-power construction, the 2003 Northeast blackout and developments in distributed generation, alternative power technologies, clean coal, nuclear power construction and air-pollution-control regulations among other power-industry issues.
He earned a B.A. in German from Middlebury College and served in Military Intelligence in Vietnam 1967-68.
