Stay updated with our speaker line up so far........

Will Hobbs is a research engineer with Research and Environmental Affairs for Southern Company, a leading U.S. producer of electricity.

Hobbs started his career with Southern Company focused on wind and solar energy as a student intern. He worked at the Georgia Tech Research Institute before joining Southern Company in his current role, where he focuses on distributed renewable energy generation and geothermal energy.

Hobbs received bachelor’s and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, writing a thesis on piezoelectric energy harvesting, vortex induced vibrations, and flow visualization.

A native of Georgia, Hobbs and his wife, Lana, currently reside in Birmingham, Ala.

Monte is a third generation Nevadan, having grown up in Sparks, Nevada and currently residing in Fallon Nevada.  He attended the University of Nevada’s Mackay School of Mines and gained a BS in Chemical Engineering in 1986.  He earned a Professional Engineering License from the State of Nevada in Chemical Engineering in 1998.  Monte has 25+ years of experience in the management of power plants and wellfields within the geothermal industry, starting with Ormat in 1985.  He has managed geothermal power plants and wellfields in Nevada, California and Hawaii for four different companies.  Most recently he joined Magma Energy and is currently the Country Manager for the US division of the company.  His responsibilities include all aspects of managing the operations and development of Magma’s assets and projects in the United States.  Monte has been a certified Emergency Medical Technician (EMT-1) in Nevada for the past 23 years.  Monte is very active in his church and is a volunteer medic for the local high school’s sports teams.  He is married to Amy, 26+ years (very tolerant of geothermal) and has two sons, Brett and Josh, 21 and 17 respectively.

Susan Petty has 30 years of experience in the geothermal industry that includes well testing, and reservoir engineering and management. Susan was a founding partner in Black Mountain Technology, a geothermal consulting firm. She has designed and implemented more than 25 geothermal well stimulations, and was involved in early stage EGS fracture stimulations Petty is a named inventor on numerous AltaRock patent applications and supervises AltaRock’s technology development program. Petty was a significant contributor to the 2007 EGS study conducted by MIT.

Ivan Wong is a Principal Seismologist, Vice President, and Manager of the Seismic Hazards Group of URS Corporation. He has more than 36 years of experience in the fields of seismology and seismic geology. Mr. Wong has directed and participated in the seismic hazard evaluations of more than 300 critical and important facilities worldwide. He has worked extensively for DOE throughout his career, most recently as the Principal Investigator for the development of the seismic design ground motions for both underground and surface facilities at Yucca Mountain.

Induced seismicity as encountered in reservoir impoundment, mining, and in the subsurface injection and withdrawal of fluids has been an area of research for Mr. Wong. He has evaluated the hazards and impacts of several cases of seismicity due to the injection of fluid as part of gas extraction activities, disposal of hazardous fluids, salt dissolution, and geothermal power production. Cases include the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver, Colorado, the Permian Basin gas field in west Texas, and The Geysers geothermal field in northern California. Mr. Wong is currently assisting DOE in the development of a protocol for EGS induced seismicity.

Mr. Wong is a member of numerous professional review panels, working groups, and committees in engineering and the earth sciences. He has actively served the U.S. Geological Survey on many review and advisory panels. He is past President of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute’s (EERI) Northern California Chapter and currently serves on EERI’s Board of Directors. Mr. Wong has authored or co-authored more than 300 professional publications.

Roy Baria is a geophysicist by profession. He also has mechanical and electrical engineering qualifications. His experiences include managing, planning and development of Engineered Geothermal Systems (EGS).  His specialities are microseismic monitoring of EGS reservoirs, active seismic, development and characterisation of EGS reservoirs.

In 1974, he joined the British Geological Survey as a geophysicist and worked on various research projects including nuclear waste management, marine geophysical surveys in the North Sea, delineation of underground cavities using seismic techniques, development of geophysical tools and characterisation of igneous rock mass.  In 1980, he was seconded from the British Geological Survey to the Camborne School of Mine’s Hot Dry Rock (CSM HDR) program as a manager of geophysics department, funded by the UK Department of Energy. In 1990, he was he Deputy Director of the CSM HDR project and was seconded to European EGS project in Soultz, France at the request of the European Commission. He was the “Scientist in Charge” and one of the three coordinators of the European EGS project. He was responsible for planning the program, coordinating scientists from various nations, preparing annual reports for the EC and developing diagnostic methods to evaluate HDR reservoirs etc. He left the European EGS program in 2005. He then became the director of Mil-Tech U.K. Ltd. He is a consultant on the EGS and associated technologies to various organizations in Europe, the United States, and Japan.

He is also the Technical Director of EGS UK Ltd, director of Hot Dry Rock Pty Ltd, Australia and was Vice President (Science and Technology) of AltaRock Energy, Inc, USA until early 2010.

Roy is Task Leader for the “Enhanced Geothermal Systems” Annex of the International Energy Agency’s Geothermal Implementing Agreement (IEA/GIA)  and has represented the IEA/GIA on EGS technology at meetings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

He has organised a number of international conferences on EGS, editor of proceedings of the conferences and co-authored books on this topic. He has extensive publication on EGS and associated topics.