Utah: Empower Leadership Conference 2024

Emily has over 15 years of experience developing and deploying low carbon technologies across the US. She’s an entrepreneur at heart who is passionate about combatting climate change and mentoring the next generation of leaders, especially women. Prior to joining AES in 2021, Emily was General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Project Finance at Community Energy, where she was part of a dynamic leadership team that pioneered the development of the first utility-scale solar projects in six states. At AES, she led origination in MISO, SPP, ERCOT and the Mountain West, as well as stood up the Build Develop Transfer business line to accelerate decarbonization in the regulated utility sector. She recently parlayed her legal and renewables experience into the burgeoning green hydrogen space and leads AES’s U.S. green hydrogen development team as Vice President of Hydrogen Projects. Emily received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and her J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. Emily grew up in Maine and now resides in Boulder, CO with her husband and two daughters. She can often be found hiking the trails at Chautauqua and attending concerts at Red Rocks and Dillon Amphitheater.

Holly Curby is a contributing writer to the devotional magazine Journey, is a local life reporter for the City Journals in Utah, and has been interviewed by the New York Times, local network affiliates, and the Salt Lake Tribune, among others. Her twenty-five plus years in marketing, a master's degree in leadership and management, and serving in executive leadership roles have provided a platform for her to provide leadership coaching and host Holly's Highlights podcast. She currently serves as the director of community and culture at two Chick-fil-A franchises in Utah. Holly is passionate about encouraging, inspiring, and equipping women and men to intentionally live their life full of purpose. www.hollycurby.com [hollycurby.com]

Eve is a Principal Environmental Scientist and Relicensing Project Manager in the Renewable Resources group at PacifiCorp/Rocky Mountain Power where she has spent almost 27 years navigating the complexities of stakeholder engagement, hydroelectric project licensing and implementation, including developing compliance and monitoring programs, for over a dozen hydroelectric projects in Utah and Idaho. Most recently she is also working to explore the feasibility of adding a 300MW pumped-storage development to an existing traditional 30MW hydroelectric project in northern Utah. Eve also specializes in large-scale land management, water quality, and environmental regulatory and compliance programs. She particularly enjoys the fisheries and other hands-on aspects of her work. Prior to her work with PacifiCorp, Eve worked as an environmental consultant specializing in recovery of disturbed ecosystems, NEPA process, and working with rare or federally-listed Endangered species of plants and animals, as well as wetland permitting. Eve has a Masters of Science in Ecology, and a Bachelors of Science in Biology; she is most pleased to be described as a field biologist and still enjoys days/nights in the field working with small (bees and bats) to large (pronghorn and bison) creatures; combining her passion for trail-running with field biology sometimes results in what her friends refer to as ‘Science Saturday’ while out on long runs—although she works primarily with water issues, she hates to drink it. Eve and her family live in Holladay, Utah.

Denise Dragoo is a partner in Snell & Wilmer’s Salt Lake City office where she focuses on natural resources, coal law, water law, environmental law, mining law, public land law, issues affecting the oil and gas industry, mine safety and health law. She has done environmental permitting for mining and energy-related projects, many of which are located on public land. She also assists clients with compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act and related administrative appeals. She practices before the U.S. Department of Interior Board of Land Appeals, the Utah Board of Oil, Gas and Mining and state and federal environmental agencies. Dragoo’s legal career has spanned over 40 years, during which time she has held leadership positions with the State Law Resources Board, Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, Mountain States Legal Foundation and the Rocky Mountain Coal Mining Institute. She’s also very active in the community, recently serving as President of The Alta Club, and has held board and leadership positions with the Utah Foundation, The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and the Junior League of Salt Lake City. In October 2021, Dragoo was elected to the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law Board of Trustees.

Candyce Fly Lee is vice president-general manager of MountainWest Pipeline, an interstate natural gas pipeline that provides transportation and underground storage services. In this role, she has direct responsibility for all operational and commercial activities, including the safe, reliable operations of the interstate transmission systems’ assets. Her responsibility includes assets in Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. The system is strategically located in the Rocky Mountains near large reserves of natural gas in six major producing areas, including the Greater Green River, Uinta and Piceance basins. MountainWest also owns and operates the Clay Basin storage facility located on the Wyoming-Utah border. Clay Basin is the largest underground storage reservoir in the Rocky Mountain Region. Previously, Fly Lee served as Williams vice president-general manager of Rockies Gathering & Processing with Williams’ West Operating Area. She also served as a director of Northeast Engineering Services Project Development, where she oversaw development teams for operations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and New York. She also served as director, Pipeline Projects, responsible for the execution of natural gas and liquid pipeline projects in Williams’ Northeast Gathering & Processing Operating Area. Since joining Williams, Fly Lee has served in various roles including project management, engineering, construction, systems planning, and managing teams to develop a natural gas gathering system to exceed 2 Bcf/d and overseeing the construction of more than 2,000 miles of gathering pipeline.
Fly Lee earned her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Kentucky.
Fly Lee currently serves as White River Hub Management Committee Managing Director, United Way of Salt Lake Board of Directors vice-chair, Salt Lake City Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority vice president, Women United board member, and Utah 211 Steering Committee member. In her community, Fly Lee serves on the PTA, the Parkside Elementary Community Council and teaches children’s church. At Williams, Fly Lee serves on the Black ERG leadership team and actively participates in other ERG events.

James R. Holbrook is a Clinical Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law where he taught negotiation, mediation, and arbitration for 17 years. Before joining the law faculty in 2002, he practiced law for 28 years, primarily in the areas of complex civil and federal white-collar criminal litigation. Since 1987, he has been chosen to mediate and appointed to arbitrate over 1,000 disputes dealing with a wide range of legal issues.
Holbrook received a B.A. in 1966 from Grinnell College where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Honorary Fellowship. In 1968, he received an M.A. from Indiana University which he attended as a National Science Foundation Fellow. He fought in combat in Vietnam in 1969, for which service he was awarded the Bronze Star and Army Commendation Medal for Valor. In 1974, he received a J.D. from the University of Utah where he was an article editor of the Journal of Contemporary Law. After law school, he clerked for the chief judge of the federal district court for Utah and later served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Salt Lake City.

Helen Kou heads BloombergNEF’s US Power practice based out of San Francisco, California, overseeing a research team that produces insights on US power markets and power prices. This includes analysis on power market fundamentals, visualization tools, regional market outlooks and regional price forecasts. She is the lead author of BNEF’s Caiso Market Outlook, which provides a power price forecast for the region based on rooftop solar, EV, utility-scale capacity deployments and capacity retirements. Prior to this role, she was an analyst on BNEF’s Energy Storage practice, covering stationary storage supply chains and North American power markets. She was the lead author for reports like Energy Storage Market Outlook and Energy Storage Cost Survey. Prior to BNEF, she was an energy fellow at the California Energy Commission and earned a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Economics and a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Physics and Engineering Sciences from University of California, Berkeley.

A seasoned process improvement expert with over 15 years of experience, Gambrelli leverages a blend of Lean, Six Sigma, and pragmatism to drive organizational efficiency. With a proven track record of leading teams in identifying bottlenecks, implementing innovative solutions, and optimizing workflows, she is adept at fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Gambrelli enjoys empowering teams to applying their newfound process improvement skills to ensure sustained success, whether it be in the public sector, software development, or even their household operations!
Gambrelli’s background is in science, holding a Master of Forensic Science degree from George Washington University and a Bachelor of Science degree from McGill University. As she progressed professionally into leadership roles, she continued to develop her skills by continuing her education, receiving Six Sigma Black Belt certification and Scrum Master certification. Next, Gambrelli is excited to grow her expertise in the use of AI as a tool to be leveraged in and to enable the sustainment of continuous improvement initiatives.

Amanda is a senior project manager and environmental planner at POWER Engineers. Her expertise is in siting and permitting large-scale energy projects, including federal authorizations, state licensing, and local land use approvals. She recently supported hydrogen gas transmission, carbon dioxide-enhanced oil recovery projects, and utility-scale solar and pumped storage hydropower generation. Amanda also manages a team of planners and project managers in the Intermountain West.

For over three decades now, Anne’s career has centered around the management of historic buildings and sites in the western United States. She grew up in Pennsylvania, attended college in Virginia, drove around the country for a while with some friends, then returned to Pennsylvania to earn an M.S. in Historic Preservation. Her first job (aside from waitressing) was as an archaeological site conservator with the National Park Service regional office in Santa Fe, from where she traveled to parks across the southwest documenting and stabilizing historic and prehistoric stone, plaster, and adobe. She then ran her own small business, based in Salt Lake City, as a historian and preservation consultant to federal agencies, local governments, and private clients, which provided the flexibility she needed to raise a family. In 2012, in need of more job stability, she joined SWCA Environmental Consultants as a lead historian, later taking on management roles as the cultural resources program director and then regional vice president responsible for the technical and financial performance of offices in Salt Lake City and Portland, Oregon, and the career development of over 120 people. She has recently returned to the technical work that interests her most, serving the public as a regional architectural historian with the U.S. Forest Service and the steward of historic resources across Utah, Nevada, Idaho, and western Wyoming. This varied career reflects her opinion that your work life should match the changing demands of your personal life, and that work is a journey that should be challenging and fun. Don't be afraid to change it up!

Sarah Ridel is a Senior Director and Transactions Counsel at Pattern Energy. Prior to joining Pattern, she was an associate at the international law firm Skadden and Senior Counsel at BayWa r.e. Americas. In these roles, she has worked on a broad range of transactions related to the development, construction, and financing of renewable energy and transmission projects. Sarah also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Kingdom of Tonga and holds a B.A. from the University of Texas – Austin and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Dr. Glenn Sjoden is the Energy Solutions Presidential Endowed Professor of Nuclear Engineering, and Director of the Utah nuclear engineering program. Glenn has over 39 years of experience, spanning a broad range of science and engineering applications serving in numerous capacities—Professor, Chief Scientist (USG SES, AFTAC), Technical director, Nuclear Research Officer (LtCol, USAF (ret), 61D), Lead Design Engineer, author, and Licensed engineering consultant. He is an expert in particle transport, and is the principal developer of the PENTRAN 3-D Sn Parallel Particle Transport Code. He performs cross-cutting research in nuclear systems analysis with High Performance Computing. Glenn is an expert in reactor research, non-proliferation, and power engineering. He also has significant treaty monitoring technical experience in nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) arms control, with work on advanced technology defense programs for the US Government; he has served as a technical expert and research lead for critical reviews supporting the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT), the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and numerous classified defense and US Government projects. He holds a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Penn State University, is a licensed Professional Engineer, and has published over 140 articles, one textbook, and one patent. In 2018, Glenn was awarded the Presidential Rank Award for superior accomplishment as a senior executive in public service by the President of the United States.

Amanda Smith is Vice President of External Affairs for AES Clean Energy and manages a team of professionals who work extensively on federal, state, and local government policy, regulatory policy at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) and State Public Utility Commissions, stakeholder relations at the project level, clean energy communications, and sustainability across the U.S. renewables platform.
Amanda is an experienced people leader, and has extensive legal, policy and government relations experience. Her experience includes environmental regulation, energy policy, renewable energy development, air quality and climate policy, radiation control, and solid and hazardous waste management. Projects and strategies benefit from her 25+ years of experience with government agencies at the state and federal level and her deep understanding of how agencies operate and enforce regulations. She has a keen understanding of energy and environmental policy and regulatory, permitting, and review processes and procedures. Prior to joining sPower and AES, she practiced law and lobbied on behalf of clients at Holland & Hart. Before that, she served as the Executive Director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality; during her time in state government, she worked to find common ground between government, private industries, land owners, and environmental groups on many complex issues in the West. Additionally, she has worked on conservation issues on public lands, preservation of public lands, energy policy, water resources, and community planning. In her capacity as the Energy Policy Advisor to Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert, she developed the Utah Energy Initiative, a 10-year strategic energy plan.

With a wealth of experience in the energy and environmental sector, Brandy Smith has played a pivotal role in stewarding a robust communications strategy for one of Utah’s leading climate change organizations, Utah Clean Energy. Serving as Communications Director, her work has raised the profile of climate solutions across the state, engaging diverse audiences and fostering meaningful change.
Brandy is a seasoned communicator and advocate for climate solutions. She specializes in translating complex energy topics into compelling narratives that inspire action and drive change. Throughout her tenure at Utah Clean Energy, Brandy has played a pivotal role in some of the most far-reaching energy initiatives in the West. Through strategic communication initiatives, she has effectively communicated the urgency of climate issues and advanced innovative solutions.
As a born and raised Utahn, Brandy is driven by a passion for environmental stewardship, and is committed to empowering individuals and communities to embrace sustainable lifestyles. She believes that harnessing the power of community and innovation is key to addressing our world’s most pressing challenges.

TK is a seasoned expert in driving large-scale organizational transformations and change management initiatives. TK spent the first 8 years of her career in human resources gaining deep experience in aligning people strategy with business objectives. This foundation has been instrumental in her subsequent 10-year focus on organizational effectiveness where she has helped numerous organizations optimize their talent, navigate complex changes, enhance operational efficiency, and foster adaptive cultures.
TK holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from UVU, a master’s degree in organizational development from Pepperdine University, and a Doctorate degree in Human Development from Fielding Graduate University. TK’s research encompassed how adults evolve with external factors such as technological advances. TK is passionate about how AI is impacting organizations, and its influence on individuals from psychological, cognitive, physical, and social perspectives. Captivated by AI’s potential, she has continued to explore how AI is shaping the ways we think, interact, and navigate the rapidly evolving world around us.