Board of Directors

Beth Garza served as the Director of the ERCOT Independent Market Monitor from 2014 - 2019 after serving as the Deputy Director since 2008.  Beth was responsible for monitoring market participant activity, evaluating wholesale market operations and recommending improvements to the wholesale market design. Over the course of her 35-year career in the electric utility industry, Beth has held a variety of leadership roles in generation and transmission planning, system operations, regulatory affairs and market design for both regulated and competitive entities. Prior to joining Potomac Economics, Beth led ERCOT’s Congestion Analysis division for four years.  In this role, she was the business lead for the development of ERCOT’s inaugural Congestion Revenue Rights market implemented as part of the conversion to a nodal energy market.  Beth served as the Manager of Market Affairs, representing NextEra’s (then FPL Energy) interests in ERCOT for five years.  Beth’s initial exposure to ERCOT was during her long tenure with Austin Energy. Beth received her Engineering degree from the University of Missouri and is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas. 

Brian Lloyd is Vice President, Regulatory Policy for Oncor Electric Delivery. In this role, Lloyd supports strategic regulatory, governmental affairs, and stakeholder engagement initiatives. Prior to joining Oncor, Lloyd served as regional vice president—external affairs and communications for Sempra Infrastructure and Sempra.

Lloyd previously served as executive director of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, where he was responsible for the daily operations and management of the agency, strategic planning, and policy development and implementation. Lloyd also served as Governor Rick Perry’s deputy director of budget, planning and policy; and served as the Governor’s primary energy policy advisor. Prior to that, Lloyd worked in a variety of roles at the Public Utility Commission and private industry related to electricity market restructuring and was the principle author of the 2008 Texas State Energy Plan developed by the Governor’s Competitiveness Council. 

Lloyd has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Louisiana State University and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a master’s degree in economics.  He serves on the boards of directors of the Gulf Coast Power Association and Oncor Cares Foundation.
 

Mark Egan is a leader in the Texas electricity market with over two decades of industry experience. Throughout his career, Mark has contributed commodity hedging solutions and financial structuring expertise to a variety of asset finance transactions including sponsor equity, term debt and tax equity partnerships.  Mark’s relationships span the industry from investor owned utilities, IPPs, private equity, asset managers, banks, consultants and trading houses. Mark has a B.A. in Economics from American University in Washington, D.C. He makes his home in Houston with his wife, three daughters and a modestly overweight beagle.

Donna Benefield serves as Senior Vice President at  NRG Energy, Inc. In this role, Donna leads the Supply  Chain, Billing Operations & Program Office responsible for procurement; Home and Business billing, remittance and collections; and spearheads key enterprise programs. As NRG has transformed to an integrated power company with its purposeful generation providing energy solutions to millions of customers, Donna plays a pivotal role defining and implementing programs to further advance the company’s strategy. Leveraging over twenty years of experience in energy and technology industries, she leads enterprise programs such as corporate transformation, strategic customer focus and the workplace of the future initiatives.

Previously, Donna served as the Senior Vice President of Information Technology. During her seventeen years of leading technology at NRG and its legacy companies, Donna defined digital strategy and delivered innovative, scalable platforms and processes. Donna led the technology teams through significant change in the power markets over the last twenty years including technology for generation and retail operations across the deregulated power markets: ERCOT, PJM, MISO, NYISO, NEISO, CAISO. Donna is a graduate of Milwaukee School of Engineering with a B.S.in Business and Computer Science, earning her Master’s in Business Administration, and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).
 

Tom Anson, a partner at the law firm of Clark Hill has a regulatory and administrative law practice that spans over three decades.  He studied energy law and regulated industries in law school and upon graduation clerked for Judge Sam Johnson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth District (who served on the “Gas Panel” which reviews Federal Energy Regulatory Commission decisions). Tom’s primary area of practice is state and federal energy and utility law, including regulatory, contract, administrative, and litigation matters. His practice encompasses representation of clients on a variety of licensing, rate, enforcement, rulemaking, and other regulatory matters before state and federal bodies and officials, such as the Public Utility Commission of Texas, the Railroad Commission of Texas, and the FERC. It also involves assisting clients with wholesale power matters and retail electric services in the restructured Texas electric market, and advising clients on various regulatory and quasi-regulatory matters. Tom joined the GCPA Board of Directors in 1997. He served as Secretary from 1997-2003, Vice President in 2004, and President in 2005. He was the Fall Conference Chair in 1992, and the Fall Conference Co-Chair in 2011. In addition, he has served as a panel moderator and speaker at several GCPA conferences.

Jim Barkley is a partner at Baker Botts where he focuses his practice on the regulatory counseling of energy industry clients in agency proceedings, projects, corporate transactions and civil litigation. He represents electric utilities, pipelines, power generators, and energy consumers before the Texas Public Utility Commission, Texas Railroad Commission, ERCOT, Texas Reliability Entity, and other federal and state agencies, as well as in state and federal courts. Before joining Baker Botts, Mr. Barkley was a consultant in Washington, D.C., advising several major non-U.S. utilities on U.S. energy and environmental legislation. He also held several positions, including research associate, in the Arms Control and Crisis Management Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Jim received a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. in History & Economics from Baylor University.

Rebecca Bollenbach serves as a Partner at Essentia Advisory Partners bringing seventeen years of experience in deregulated power and gas. She has worked closely with a range of clients on systems and process optimization in physical and financial power across ERCOT, SPP, SERC, PJM, CAISO, NYISO, ISO-NE, Ontario, and Alberta.

Rebecca has led the design, build and implementation of trading, forecasting, and ETRM systems for multiple wholesale and retail power clients, including nodal trading system suites for FTR trading desks in North America. Rebecca also leverages her extensive knowledge of ISO operations to develop strategies, process and systems for Essentia's clients in Mexico’s emerging energy markets.

Daryl Brown is the executive director of external affairs for the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) – South Region. In his role, Brown is the organization’s primary internal and external leader for regional operations, customer management and government relations. He oversees regional customer integration efforts focusing on extending and protecting the organization. Brown is also a member of MISO’s executive team.

Previously, Brown was the director of innovation/utility at Hitachi Global Social Innovation Business, where he used a broad set of business and technology skills to solve customer challenges by delivering multi-pronged solutions with creative and innovative applications. Prior to Hitachi Global Social Innovation Business, Brown was the director of innovation/utility at Current Powered by GE. In this role, he was responsible for supporting the utility segments in North America and Canada from an implementation/ business development phase of Intelligent Cities Solutions. Brown also previously served as vice president at Southern Company with 23 years of utility experience. While at Southern, he led teams in marketing, customer service, engineering, distribution and economic development for both Mississippi Power Company and Georgia Power Company.

Brown earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Mississippi State University and served in both the Army National Guard and Army Reserve for 17 years before being honorably discharged as a Major. Brown actively serves community nonprofits and industry-based organizations. He is a member of the American Association of Blacks in Energy, serves on the board of directors for the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, Make-A-Wish Mid-South, Arkansas Research Alliance and GRid-connected Advanced Power Electronic Systems, and the industry advisory board of the Cybersecurity Center for Secure Evolvable Energy Delivery Systems.
 

Katie Coleman is Managing Partner of the Austin office of O'Melveny & Myers.  She was previously a partner at Thompson & Knight, where she served as the Firm’s Government and Regulatory Practice Group Leader. Katie has more than fifteen years of experience representing large customers on energy matters in Texas and has extensive experience with both ERCOT’s competitive market and rate regulation under the PUCT. Katie also assists large companies with private contracting and infrastructure projects, including energy supply agreements, joint ownership agreements for privately owned electrical facilities, and generation project development. She is best known for her representation of the Texas Industrial Energy Consumers, the Texas Association of Manufacturers, and individual industrial companies.
 
Katie is a member of the Board of Directors for the Gulf Coast Power Association (GCPA) and served as President for 2020-2021. She previously served as President of the State Bar of Texas Public Utility Law Section for the 2016-2017 term.  Katie has been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America® from 2018-2023, selected as “Lawyer of the Year—Administrative/Regulatory Law” in 2023 and “Lawyer of the Year – Energy Regulatory, Austin” by The Best Lawyers in America® for 2019, recognized by Chambers USA for “Energy: State Regulatory & Litigation” from 2015-2022, recognized by The Legal 500 US for “Energy Regulatory – Conventional Power” from 2017-2022, honored as a “Texas Rising Star” in Legislative & Governmental Affairs by Thomson Reuters for 2016-2022, and recognized as one of 23 statewide Texas Lawyer’s “Lawyers on the Rise” in 2018. She also received the Gulf Coast Power Association’s (GCPA’s) “emPOWERing Young Professionals Award” in 2019.

Mark Dreyfus has over twenty-five years as a Texas electric industry leader with extensive experience in electric regulatory policy, legislative policy and representation, ERCOT market design, stakeholder collaboration, problem solving, communications, and executive leadership.

Mr. Dreyfus holds a Ph.D. in resource economics and public finance.  He has worked as a consultant in the electric sector and been employed in federal, state and local government positions. 

Mr. Dreyfus has served as Chief Economist in the policy office at the Public Utility Commission of Texas, as a Commissioner’s assistant, and at Austin Energy, as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Corporate Communications.

During his time at Austin Energy, Mr. Dreyfus was responsible for regulatory and market policy before the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, for legislative policy and representation, corporate communications, marketing, and rate policy and processes.  He represented the municipal utility sector in the ERCOT stakeholder process, including serving on the ERCOT Board of Directors and as Chair of the ERCOT Technical Advisory Committee.

At MD Energy Consulting, Mr. Dreyfus provides electric sector regulatory and legislative consulting and representation in Austin and ERCOT.

Keith Emery is Senior Vice President of Origination for Tenaska Power Services Co. (TPS). He is responsible for TPS’ marketing and business development activities throughout the ERCOT market region, focusing on developing creative energy management solutions for independent power producers, retail electric providers, and a variety of wholesale and industrial customers.

Mr. Emery has 34 years of experience in the electric power industry, including 27 years focused on deregulated energy markets throughout the United States. Before joining TPS, Mr. Emery worked with NextEra Energy Resources and Florida Power & Light Company for 13 years in various operations, engineering, and power marketing positions of increasing responsibility. Mr. Emery has served on the ERCOT Board of Directors, representing the independent power marketer segment, for 5 years as Director and for 1 year as Segment Alternate, the ERCOT Technical Advisory Committee for 5 years, and ERCOT Wholesale Market Subcommittee for 3 years. He has been actively involved with the ERCOT market for 24 years and serves on the board of directors of the Gulf Coast Power Association, a nonprofit regional electric power trade organization. Mr. Emery is a registered professional Engineer and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Business Administration from Florida Atlantic University.

Paul Schulze is vice president of public affairs for Hunt Consolidated, Inc., in Dallas. Schulze provides public affairs support and is responsible for government affairs activities on behalf of the Hunt affiliation of companies.

Prior to joining Hunt, Schulze spent almost nine years in Washington, D.C., working on and around Capitol Hill. During his time in D.C., he served as legislative assistant to Congressman Sam Johnson of Texas, as federal liaison for the Texas Education Agency, and later as legislative director and then chief of staff to Congressman John Culberson of Texas. A native of Austin, Schulze has also worked in the Texas Legislature.

Schulze is a 2009 Marshall Memorial Fellow and an alumnus of the Texas Lyceum. 

Schulze received a bachelor of arts in government from the University of Texas at Austin and a master of business administration from the University of Maryland.