I'm an Omaha native, husband, father of two daughters, Army veteran, and energy professional living in Bennington, Nebraska.

After graduating from Creighton Prep, I attended the United States Military Academy at West Point and commissioned as an officer in the Army upon graduation.

I subsequently served more than five years on active duty in the United States Army, including as an officer with 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, and a deployment to Afghanistan.

I left active-duty military service in 2021, transitioned into the energy industry, and moved my family back home to the Omaha area, where we now live in Bennington. 

Today, I work as a Director of Power Markets, specializing in wholesale electricity markets, demand response, and helping large energy consumers and utilities become more flexible and responsive to the needs of the electric grid.

I'm running for the OPPD Board because I believe the decisions made over the next several years will shape electricity costs, reliability, and economic opportunities for our families and communities for decades to come.

Since transitioning out of the military, I've built my career in electricity markets, demand response, and energy market optimization.

My experience spans several of America's major wholesale electricity markets, including the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), which serves Nebraska, as well as ERCOT, PJM, and MISO.

Much of my work has focused on helping large electricity consumers understand energy prices, manage risk, and participate in programs that allow them to reduce their electricity demand when doing so provides value to the broader grid.

This involves understanding how electricity is generated, priced, transmitted, consumed, and balanced in real time, as well as how utilities and grid operators plan for future capacity requirements.

These subjects are directly relevant to decisions OPPD's Board of Directors makes about generation investments, resource adequacy, customer rates, demand response, and long-term infrastructure planning.

Because electricity is too important to our community's future to treat utility governance as an afterthought.

OPPD is publicly owned. Its board has significant responsibility for setting rates, approving budgets and major investments, overseeing management, and establishing the utility's long-term direction.

Today, the energy industry is undergoing a period of substantial change. Electricity demand is growing, infrastructure costs are increasing, regional reliability requirements are evolving, and new technologies are changing how electricity can be produced and consumed.

I believe OPPD benefits from having directors with professional experience in the energy industry and the markets in which it operates.

My priorities are straightforward: protect affordability, maintain reliability, make disciplined investments, support OPPD's workforce, and ensure economic growth creates measurable benefits for the people who own our public power system, the ratepayers. 

I'm neither categorically for nor against data centers.

I support economic development that strengthens our communities, creates opportunities, and delivers meaningful benefits to OPPD's customer-owners.

Data centers can provide substantial private investment, construction employment, permanent technical jobs, tax revenue, and long-term electricity sales. Their relatively steady electricity consumption can also help utilities recover certain fixed costs across a larger volume of sales.

But those benefits are not automatic.

Data centers can also require enormous amounts of electricity and expensive investments in generation, transmission, and substations. They may create challenges involving water consumption, infrastructure availability, environmental impacts, and the risk that projected electricity demand never fully materializes.

A large customer is not automatically a good customer simply because it promises to consume hundreds of megawatts.

The important questions are whether the project pays the costs it creates, makes credible long-term commitments, contributes to grid reliability, and provides a measurable net benefit to the community.

My position is simple: Economic growth should strengthen public power, not turn Nebraska families and small businesses into the financial backstop for somebody else's investment.

Data-center growth can contribute to rising electricity costs, but it would be inaccurate to attribute every rate increase to data centers.

Electricity rates are influenced by many factors, including fuel prices, equipment and labor costs, existing infrastructure, new generation requirements, transmission investments, and regional reliability rules.

Large customers create additional costs when serving them requires new generating capacity or grid infrastructure. If those costs are not properly allocated, existing customers can end up subsidizing the expansion.

However, large customers can also provide benefits.

When a utility has available capacity, a creditworthy customer with predictable electricity demand may improve utilization and contribute toward fixed system costs. Those benefits can help reduce upward pressure on rates.

The determining factor is whether the customer's revenues and commitments exceed the incremental costs and risks associated with serving it.

That requires transparent cost-of-service analysis, credible forecasting, and enforceable agreements—not assumptions based on a project's size or reputation.

I believe the board should insist on strong financial and operational safeguards before OPPD commits substantial resources to major new loads. These standards should not be limited to only data centers, but any new large load that impacts our system.

Those protections should include:

Financial commitments and credit support. Developers should demonstrate credible financing, site control, and sufficient financial security before major infrastructure investments are undertaken on their behalf.

Minimum payments and long-term contracts. Customers should make enforceable commitments that allow OPPD to recover the fixed costs incurred to serve them, even if actual consumption is lower than initially projected.

Protection against stranded infrastructure. Contracts should address what happens if a project is delayed, downsized, canceled, or closed before OPPD recovers the cost of customer-driven investments. Depending on the project, protections could include deposits, parent-company guarantees, termination payments, and other financial security.

Appropriate rates and cost allocation. Large customers should pay the generation, transmission, capacity, operating, and customer-specific infrastructure costs fairly attributable to them. 

Demand response and emergency curtailment. Where technically feasible, large customers should provide measurable flexibility, including defined reductions during grid emergencies. Any discounted or interruptible service should reflect the actual reliability and financial value provided.

Construction and energization milestones. OPPD should align infrastructure investments with verified project progress rather than relying solely on speculative demand forecasts.

Transparency and accountability. The board and public should receive meaningful information about aggregate large-load growth, financial exposure, reliability impacts, and whether the customer class is contributing net value to the system, while respecting legitimate confidential business information.

These protections should be proportionate to the costs and risks of each project.

The objective is not to discourage responsible investment. It is to make sure companies seeking access to Nebraska's public power system are financially accountable for the commitments they make.

Yes. In fact, Nebraska law now requires covered data-center owners or operators to enter into community benefit agreements with affected communities. However, this provision does not prescribe a detailed statewide template for who qualifies as an affected community, which benefits must be included, or specific enforcement terms. That makes careful implementation and public accountability especially important.

I believe these agreements should provide meaningful benefits that extend beyond the developer's construction site.

Depending on the project and the needs of the affected community, those commitments could include:

• Local workforce development, apprenticeships, and partnerships with schools and technical colleges.

• Meaningful opportunities for local contractors, skilled trades, and Nebraska businesses.

• Investments in public infrastructure, including roads, water, and wastewater facilities.

• Support for schools, public safety, and community development.

• Measurable water-conservation and environmental commitments.

• Clear performance measures, reporting requirements, and accountability for promised benefits.

These benefits should be evaluated alongside the project's tax incentives, infrastructure costs, and long-term economic effects.

A temporary construction boom is not the same as a permanent economic benefit, and a large capital-investment announcement does not automatically translate into lower electric bills or stronger public services.

OPPD's board does not independently control county zoning, state tax incentives, or local water permitting. But it does have important responsibilities involving electric rates, infrastructure investments, reliability, and coordination with other public entities.

My goal would be to work with the appropriate local and state authorities so that the economic benefits promised to affected communities are meaningful, documented, and accountable.

Water use is a legitimate concern and should be part of evaluating major data-center developments.

Different cooling systems can have very different water and energy requirements.

Some facilities use evaporative cooling systems that consume water to reject heat. Others use dry cooling, hybrid systems, or liquid-cooling technologies that may substantially reduce on-site water consumption.

However, closed-loop liquid cooling does not necessarily mean a facility consumes no water. A closed liquid circuit can still rely on an evaporative cooling tower elsewhere in the system.

Similarly, technologies that reduce water use may require more electricity under certain conditions.

That's why I support evaluating actual water withdrawals, consumptive use, peak-day demand, source-water availability, cooling-system design, and energy efficiency rather than simply accepting broad claims that a facility is "water efficient."

Nebraska's 2026 legislation also requires covered data centers to report annual water usage and other operating information.

Water regulation and permitting primarily fall under the authority of water suppliers, municipalities, Natural Resources Districts, and relevant state agencies - not OPPD acting alone.

I believe OPPD should coordinate with those authorities and support responsible development standards that protect local water resources while accurately accounting for electricity and cooling requirements.

I support an all-of-the-above approach grounded in reliability, affordability, and sound financial analysis.

Coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar, batteries, demand response, and other energy technologies each have different capabilities, costs, and limitations.

For example, wind and solar can provide substantial low-marginal-cost electricity, but their output varies with weather and the time of day. Natural gas and other dispatchable generation can provide dependable capacity and flexibility, but introduce fuel costs, emissions, and fuel-supply risks. Batteries can shift electricity across hours, but their duration and capacity value must be evaluated against the actual reliability need.

I believe OPPD should evaluate investments based on their full value to the system, including delivered cost, seasonal accredited capacity, transmission requirements, reliability, fuel security, environmental impacts, operating flexibility, and long-term financial risk.

That includes seriously evaluating emerging technologies such as advanced nuclear, while being realistic about costs and development timelines.

The objective should never be to favor a particular technology for political reasons.

The objective should be to deliver reliable, affordable, and environmentally responsible electricity using the best combination of resources available.

My focus would be on disciplined planning, accountability, and ensuring that OPPD remains a reliable and affordable public power utility as our region grows.

I'd particularly want the board to evaluate whether OPPD is maximizing the value of its existing infrastructure, adequately accounting for the risks of large-load growth, and comparing new generation investments with qualified demand-side alternatives.

I'd also prioritize workforce capacity, infrastructure maintenance, storm resilience, and making sure OPPD has the skilled employees necessary to safely operate and maintain a growing system.

Finally, I'd advocate for meaningful public transparency around major investment decisions, customer rates, and financial commitments made on behalf of new large electricity users.

OPPD belongs to the people it serves.

I believe its board should approach every major decision with that responsibility at the forefront: Will this improve reliability, preserve affordability, and create long-term value for our customer-owners?