WNTAG members
Members of the WNTAG panel include acousticians and wind neighbors, DEP officials and wind developers. These biographical statements were provided to the panel members in materials distributed at the first public meeting.
| Steve Ambrose
S.E. Ambrose & Associates |
Stephen Ambrose is a Board Certified Member of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering and a Full Member of the Acoustical Society of America. He has over 35 years’ experience working in acoustics, environmental sound, and industrial noise control. His career started with Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation in Boston, Massachusetts, where he was responsible for quieting large electric power stations to coexist as a good acoustic neighbor, and is currently an independent consultant practicing near Portland, Maine. He coauthored the Bruce McPherson Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise Study for Falmouth, Massachusetts, followed by a number of peer-reviewed papers and articles about wind turbine noise and adverse public health impacts. |
| Michael Bahtiarian
Vice President, Noise Control Engineering, Inc. |
Michael Bahtiarian is a Vice President at Noise Control Engineering, Inc. where he has been employed for the past 19 years. At NCE he has worked on both industrial (land) and marine noise control projects. His industrial work has included numerous peer reviews of wind turbine projects in Falmouth, Kingston, Bourne, Dartmouth, Brewster and Colebrook (CT) and Prospect (CT). He has conducted numerous industrial facility compliance measurements and background noise measurements throughout New England.
On the marine/ship side of the business, he was worked on the design of many quiet research vessels for U.S. NOAA, U.S. Navy, National Science Foundation (NSF) and international clients. Mr. Bahtiarian served as the chairman of the ANSI/ASA committee (S.12/Working Group 49) which developed the first commercial standard for the measurement of underwater noise source levels from ships. He is now the convener of the ISO committee working on an international version of the same standard. Mr. Bahtiarian has served as an advisor to the U.S. delegation to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), Design & Equipment Committee. Mr. Bahtiarian is a Board Certified member of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering (INCE Bd.Cert.). He is also a member of the ASME; Noise Control Division and the Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Mr. Bahtiarian received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Penn State University and his M.S. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. |
| Albert Bangert
Department of Public Works Director, Scituate, MA |
Albert Bangert is the Director of Public Works in Scituate, MA, a position he has held for the last five years. Prior to taking on this role, he worked for three years as the Town of Scituate’s liaison for the MBTA Greenbush commuter rail expansion. He current serves as the Town’s principal contact for wind turbine and solar array projects. Mr. Bangert received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Union College in 1968. He joined Procter & Gamble and worked for P&G in positions of increasing responsibility across the United States and Europe with his work spanning across a range of fields including manufacturing, engineering, finance, and logistics. Mr. Bangert has served on many advisory boards in Scituate including the Town Advisory Committee, Zoning Board of Appeals, Energy Committee, and the Cable TV Advisory Committee. He has also served on the North Bennett Street School Board of Overseers in Boston, MA. He currently resides in Scituate, MA where he enjoys hobbies such as woodworking, gardening, and playing with his grandchildren. |
| Bram Claeys
Deputy Director Renewables Division, Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources |
Bram Claeys joined the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources in the summer of 2011, as Renewable Energy Policy Director. He is responsible for developing and analyzing opportunities for new and better renewable and alternative energy policies at the Massachusetts state level, and is a member of the management team coordinating the state’s Clean Energy Results Program. He ha!) 12 years of experience in energy and climate policy, working in Belgium, European Union institutions and the UN climate negotiations. As a policy advisor to the energy minister in Belgium, he developed innovative policies to support renewable energy and increase the energy efficiency of industrial manufacturing. He also served on the coordinating committee for the Belgian EU presidency, and the 2010 meeting of the EU-US Energy Council. Prior to that, he served for several years as one of the leading NGO authorities pushing for ambitious climate and energy policies. As an environmental consultant at SGS he analyzed industrial scale investments and the international climate mechanisms.
Bram Claeys holds a Master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Ghent as well as degrees in Development Cooperation from the University of Ghent and Environmental Science & Technology from the University of Brussels. |
| David Cowan
Vice President of Environmental Affairs, First Wind |
As Vice President of Environmental Affairs, Mr. Cowan oversees environmental assessment, permitting and compliance for First Wind Energy projects throughout the United States. He currently oversees permit compliance for an operating fleet of over 900 MW in Maine, New York, Utah, Washington and Hawaii, and is managing environmental assessment and permitting for several hundred MW currently under development. As First Wind’s senior environmental executive he advises the President and CEO on permitting and compliance risks and secures documentation for financing. Mr. Cowan is a Certified Wildlife Biologist with over 30 years professional experience including work in non-profit, academic, environmental consulting, and owner capacities. Joining First Wind in 2004, Mr. Cowan oversaw the permitting of the company’s earliest projects, and has managed the development of an environmental program that is among the most advanced in the industry. Mr. Cowan oversaw the preparation and approval of the first Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) to benefit endangered species at four wind energy projects in Hawaii, and continues to serve as senior advisor for these conservation programs.
Mr. Cowan represents First Wind before environmental and energy siting boards, and participates in regional and national environmental forums on behalf of the industry, actively shaping environmental regulations and wind power policy. |
| Todd Drummey
Resident, Falmouth, MA |
Mr. Drummey holds a B.S. degree in marine biology and environmental science. He became a Certified Financial Planner® in 1998 and currently holds a variety of securities and insurance industry licenses. He .owns and operates a Registered Investment Advisory practice· in Falmouth Massachusetts.
Mr. Drummey resides in East Falmouth, in close proximity to three recently constructed wind turbines. During the past three years he has devoted hundreds of hours researching wind turbine issues. He has worked closely with several acoustics experts studying wind turbine noise, and has collected, analyzed, and reviewed the results of his own acoustic measurements. He accompanied MassDEP officials during their investigations of noise complaints in Falmouth. He was a member of the Wind Turbine Options Analysis Process, which was established to examine the long term future of the Town of Falmouth’s two wind turbines. These activities have provided him with a personal, as well as a technical background regarding noise issues associated with wind turbines. . Mr. Drummey is married and has three children. In his free time he enjoys boating, fishing, growing orchids, woodworking and spending time with family and friends. |
| Sheryl Grace
Associate Professor, Boston University |
Sheryl Grace is on the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Boston University. Her interests lie in the fields of unsteady aerodynamics and aeroacoustics. She focuses on creating analytical and computational models of the mechanics, which create sound and vibration. She is most interested in applications in which the vibration and sound result from the interactions of unsteady flows past solid bodies, such as for aircraft external structures and marine and aircraft propulsion systems. Her analyses are intended to be used as predictive tools. in the design of next generation systems, and they offer a less expensive mode of prediction as compared to experiment. She has twice been invited to lecture at the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics as part of the Aeroacoustics series. She has made contributions to her field through her work on inverse methods for source/disturbance identification and investigations of aperture and cavity flows. In the past she has received funding from both GEAE and Boeing for her work related to aircraft and engine noise. Currently, she is funded by the Aeroacoustics Research Consortium to benchmark existing, and develop alternative, methods for utilizing CFD in the prediction of fan noise.
Beyond her research and teaching, Professor Grace is a past faculty advisor for the student chapter of AIAA at Boston University, for which she won the National Faculty Advisor Award. She has worked on numerous outreach activities for K-12. Prior to joining BU she earned her PhD in aerospace engineering at The University of Notre Dame, an MS in Applied Mathematics at Oklahoma State University, and a BS in mathematics at the University of Akron. |
| Andrew Greene
Director, Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board |
Andrew Greene currently serves as Director of the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board and Siting Division at the Department of Public Utilities. He has an extensive background in clean power markets and technologies, environmental compliance and strategic planning, and emission-control measures and trading markets. Mr. Greene has more than 20 years experience on energy and environmental issues.
Prior to his return to Massachusetts state government in 2012, he consulted for almost 20 years with energy companies and other public and private sector clients on environmental strategy and technical matters, with an emphasis on due diligence, environmental impact analysis, regulatory reviews, and environmental compliance capital spending decisions. Previously, he served as a director in Massachusetts energy and environmental agencies, where he helped develop and implement policies and programs to advance the Commonwealth’s energy and environmental objectives. Andrew holds a BA in Economics from Tufts University, and an MBA from Boston College. |
| Wendy Heiger-Bernays
Associate Professor, Environmental Health, Boston University |
Wendy Heiger-Bernays is on the faculty of the Department of Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. Her work reflects her education in molecular toxicology and her professional experience in regulatory toxicology and risk assessment. Her interests center on understanding how environmental toxicants adversely affect people’s health and how risks associated with these exposures can be quantified. She is collaborating with researchers at Wellesley College and UMASS Amherst to understand patterns of migration of contaminants in compost in community gardens and risks associated with these agents, with the objective of translating this research into cost-effective best practices. As a member of a multidisciplinary team she is investigating the properties that impact human health and that limit the .installation of on-shore large wind turbines. Dr. Heiger-Bernays is a member of the BUSPH team investigating flame retardants in which she is focusing on understanding the risks associated with exposure to the chemicals. She also serves on technical advisory committees for toxicological issues at both the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the US Environmental Protection Agency and as chair of her local board of health. |
| Kevin Kinzie (tentative)
GE Water and Power, Blade Acoustic Team |
|
| James Manwell
Professor & Director of the Wind Energy Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
James Manwell is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is the Director of the Wind Energy Center (formerly the Renewable Energy Research Laboratory) there. Prof. Manwell has been working in field of renewable energy for over 30 years, both within the United States and internationally. His research interests have focused on assessment of the wind resource and wind turbine external design conditions, hybrid power system design, energy storage and offshore wind energy. He is an author of a textbook on wind energy; Wind Energy Explained; Theory, Design and Application. He worked with the International Energy Agency’s wind energy R&D activity, Annex VIII, which dealt with autonomous wind systems and in conjunction with that activity was a contributing author to the book, Wind-Diesel Systems; A Guide to the Technology and its Implementation. Subsequently, he was the US representative to the International Electrotechnical Commission’s (IEC) program to develop design standards for offshore wind turbines (IEC 61400-3), served on International Science Panel on Renewable Energies, was instrumental in bringing a large wind turbine blade test facility to Massachusetts and participated in the establishment of the North American Academy of Wind Energy. He is presently a member of the IEC group (TC 88 61400-MT3) which is developing a second edition of the offshore wind turbine design standard. He is an author or co-author of more than 200 journal articles and conference papers.
Under his direction, the Renewable Energy Research Laboratory installed in 1994 the first utility scale (250 kW) wind turbine in Massachusetts and also assisted the Town of Hull in acquiring its two wind turbines. |
| Peter McPhee
Program Director, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center |
Peter McPhee is a Program Director at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), whose mission is to accelerate the success of clean energy technologies, companies and projects in Massachusetts-while creating high-quality jobs and long-term economic growth for the people of Massachusetts. Peter serves as the technical lead for MassCEC’s Commonwealth Wind program, which has the goals of guiding and supporting wind project proponents through the detailed analysis and community engagement necessary to evaluate proposed projects, and to support the development of projects that, through the results of this process, demonstrate appropriate siting. Peter led the efforts in creating MassCEC’s Acoustic Study Methodology for Wind Turbine Projects, which established a standardized methodology for conducting pre-development acoustic studies for projects that receive or request technical or financial support from MassCEC. In collaboration with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP), he is managing the Research Study on Wind Turbine Acoustics, which seeks to measure the level and quality of sound emissions from a variety of operating wind turbines in Massachusetts. The study will help inform state agencies, local decision-makers, project developers, researchers, and the public about acoustic characteristics of wind turbines.
He has served as the primary technical reviewer for dozens of preconstruction acoustical studies for community and commercial wind projects in Massachusetts. In addition, he has led the technical review of over 40 wind resource and feasibility study analyses. He has served as an advisor on several state and regional committees focused on clean energy technology and siting. Prior to joining MassCEC, Peter was a senior engineer for the energy consulting firm DNV KEMA Energy & Sustainability, where he focused on wind resource assessment, risk and uncertainty analysis and project due diligence. Peter holds a B.S. from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and a M.S. from the Johns Hopkins University, both in mechanical engineering. |
| Chris Menge
Senior Vice President, Harris Miller Miller & Hanson Inc. (HMMH) |
Since 1972, Chris Menge’s career has focused on the analysis and control of noise from a variety of transportation, industrial and entertainment sources. His most extensive experience encompasses highway noise prediction and barrier design, outdoor entertainment sources such as race tracks and theme parks, and ground-based noise sources such as wind turbines and sources at airports and national parks. Chris has conducted and directed noise studies for several proposed and existing wind energy facilities.
Chris was a key developer of the Federal Highway Administration’s two most recent highway noise prediction computer models. Chris served as a board member and/or officer of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering (INCE) from 2006 through 2012. He is also a member of the Transportation Research Board’s (TRB’s) ADC40 Committee on Transportation-Related Noise and Vibration. He regularly presents papers on his recent studies and current research at INCE and TRB conferences. |
| Robert O’Neal
Principal, Epsilon Associates |
Robert O’Neal is a member of the Institute of Noise Control Engineers (INCE) with more than 25 years of experience in the areas of community noise impact assessments, meteorological data collection and analyses, and air quality modeling. Mr. O’Neal’s noise impact evaluation experience includes design and implementation of sound level measurement programs, modeling of future impacts, conceptual mitigation analyses, and compliance testing. He also provides expert witness testimony on noise impact studies in front of local boards, courts of law, and adjudicatory hearings.
Mr. O’Neal is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist as recognized by the American Meteorological Society. He is the lead author on several peer-reviewed journal articles and has presented findings at various conferences throughout the country. |
| Greg Tocci
President and founding partner of Cavanaugh Tocci Associates |
Gregory Tocci earned his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University in 1970 and his MS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1973. Tocci studied acoustics and vibration. In 1975, with William J. Cavanaugh, he co-founded Cavanaugh Tocci Associates, Inc. of Sudbury, MA and serves as its President and Chief Executive Officer.
He is a registered professional engineer in MA and Rhode Island. Tocci was President of the National Council of Acoustical Consultants, later receiving NCAC’s C. Paul Boner Medal for contributions to acoustical consulting. He is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America (FASA),na Board-Certified Member of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering (INCE, Bd. Cert.), and served as an Associate Editor of INCE’s professional journal, the Noise Control Engineering Journal (NCEJ),and was the first to serve as INCE Vice President for Board Certification. He has published numerous technical papers and is the author of a widely used design manual, Solutia’s Acoustical Glazing Design Guide. Tocci consults on a diverse range of projects, including many types of noise and vibration studies, speech privacy and intelligibility studies, and environmental noise impact assessments for residential, commercial, and industrial developments and for transportation systems. |
| Rene Wood
Board of Health, Sheffield, MA |
Ms. Wood resides in Sheffield, Berkshire County MA. Currently retired, she has been engaged in civic affairs and volunteer work for many years. She comes to this Technical Advisory Group as a member of the Sheffield Board of Health.
Her professional background focused on sales, marketing and problem solving with the majority of her career in information technology. She holds BA, MBA and MA degrees. Current, Ms. Wood is a member of the Sheffield Board of Health, the Sheffield Board of Selectmen, a member of MMA’s Environmental Policy Committee and Sheffield’s Alternate Delegate to Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, where she is a member of the Executive Committee and Chairman of the Commission Development Committee. She was previously on the Town’s Planning Board, where she served as chair for four years. An active member of many local non-profit organizations, she also enjoys the Berkshires, friends and family, gardening, learning and travel. |
Wind Wise ~ Massachusetts 
Trackbacks