Search Results

Travas Deal’s distinguished professional and military career spans over three decades, during which he has served in various roles and industries. His career is defined by public service and a commitment to community and country.
Following a national search, Deal was selected as CEO on Feb. 23, 2023. He also served as Chief Operations Officer before his role as CEO.
As CEO of Colorado Springs Utilities – one of the few four-service, municipally-owned utilities in the nation – he is responsible for more than 2,000 employees and the safe and reliable operation of electric, natural gas, water, and wastewater services. Deal is also responsible for those services provided to five key military installations in the service territory.
Deal oversees an extensive utility system that includes power plants, thousands of miles of distribution pipelines and treatment plants. The water system alone stretches over more than ten Colorado counties and features transmountain water delivery pipelines and high mountain reservoirs.

Michael Avanzi is the General Manager of Kaukauna Utilities (KU) in Kaukauna, Wisconsin. He joined the multi service (electric and water) public utility in November 2021 and is responsible for overseeing a staff that serves approximately 17,000 customers. Since joining KU, the organization has been awarded nearly $5M in grants for innovative projects including a microgrid with battery storage, city-wide reverse osmosis water treatment system, advanced cybersecurity technology, replacement of all street lights with LEDs and more. Over the past few years under Michael’s leadership, KU was once again awarded the APPA RP3 Diamond level designation and the Smart Energy Provider (SEP) designation among other awards. Michael sits on the Executive Committee, Member Services Advisory Group and Personnel Committee for WPPI, KU’s joint action agency and wholesale power provider. Michael has not only gotten actively involved with WPPI but also MEUW, the state association for public power in Wisconsin, as a Board member, Chair of the Member Engagement Committee and Legislative & Regulatory Committee member. Michael is a graduate of WPPI’s Joint Action Leadership certification program and MEUW’s Utility Leadership and Fundamentals of Utility Management programs. He’s also gotten actively involved in the community serving on the City of Kaukauna Planning Commission and Industrial Park Commission.

Prior to joining KU, Michael was the Manager of Energy Planning and Innovation at Colorado Springs Utilities and had been with the organization since August 2016. He oversaw all long-term planning for the electric and natural gas T&D systems which each serve over 200,000 customers. Michael led the creation of the Sustainable Energy Plan which retired the downtown Martin Drake coal power plant by 2022, brought more renewable energy and the first battery energy storage to Colorado Springs, promoted the advancement of electric vehicles in the community and conceived the idea of an Advanced Technologies Campus - a future hub for innovation in the region.

Before moving to Colorado Springs, he worked for 12 years at Memphis Light, Gas and Water in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. Michael graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Christian Brothers University and a MBA from Union University. He’s a licensed Professional Engineer in the state of Tennessee.

During his 22+ years in public power, Michael has been a regular attendee of APPA functions including the Engineering & Operations Conference, Joint Action Conference, Legislative Rally and National Conference. Michael has also been involved in the Energy Transition Working Group for the past couple of years and was just recently selected to serve on APPA’s SEP Review Panel.

Jess Gehin became associate laboratory director for INL’s Nuclear Science & Technology (NS&T) Directorate in March 2021 after serving as chief scientist for the directorate since 2018. Over his 28-year career, he has built national strategies and priorities for nuclear energy, led complex projects and organizations, and developed strong relationships with senior leaders within INL, DOE and federal sponsors, and other laboratories, companies, and universities. In support of the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, he served as the national technical director for the DOE Microreactor Program. He expanded NS&T’s strategic direction and helped develop and establish key projects to build advanced reactors at INL, such as the Department of Defense’s demonstration microreactor Project Pele, and the Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation (MARVEL) Project. Previously, he held research and leadership positions at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in nuclear reactor core physics, reactor core and system technologies, reactor modeling and simulation, and fuel cycle reactor applications. While at ORNL, he served as director of the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors. He earned a bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering from Kansas State University, and master’s and doctoral degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was an associate professor at the University of Tennessee, is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society, and has authored or co-authored more than 120 refereed journal and conference articles, technical reports, and conference summaries.