The following leaders and experts have agreed to speak at the conference:

SPEAKER BIOS

Mike Ashar is executive vice president, Refining and Marketing, of Suncor Energy Inc. and president of Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. He is part of the team of executives who have led the increase in Suncor’s market capitalization from less than US$2 billion to over US$20 billion since the company became publicly traded.  In his role with Suncor Energy (U.S.A.), Mike managed the company’s 2003 entry into the U.S. market with the US$150 million acquisition of Denver-based refining, pipeline and retail assets. He continues to lead the operation of these facilities and manages the company’s ongoing strategy to expand its downstream assets in the United States, including the acquisition of a second Denver-area refinery this year and its integration with Suncor’s existing facility.  Mike is also responsible for Suncor’s overall corporate strategy, including competition, marketing and growth planning. Before taking the lead of Suncor Energy (U.S.A.), Mike was executive vice president of Suncor’s Oil Sands operation, a position he assumed in October 1996. During his tenure, Suncor’s flagship Oil Sands business increased production from 80,000 barrels per day to 225,000 barrels per day. Mike’s management of this growth included overseeing the US$2.5 billion Millennium project from inception to start up with direct accountability for all aspects of the project. Before taking on leadership of the Oil Sands business, Mike was vice president of refining at Suncor’s Sarnia Refinery for five years. Since joining Suncor in 1987, he has held a number of positions with Suncor’s refining and marketing group.  Between 1977 and 1991, Mike held various refining and marketing positions with Petro-Canada and BP.Mike currently serves on the Board of the National Petroleum Refiners Association and Operation Eyesight International. Mike earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy and economics, as well as a Master’s degree in chemical engineering and a Master’s in business administration, all from the University of Toronto. In 2003, Mike was named “Operations Executive of the Year” and a member of Canada’s executive “Dream Team” by Canadian Business Magazine.

John R. Barnes is Chairman & CEO of B.W.O.C., Inc.  and B&R Energy, LLC., small Texas-based Independent Oil Companies. He is also Chairman, President, and owner of Somerset Energy, Inc., Midland Security Trust Company, Barnes Petroleum Corporation, and Chairman of Wicon Technologies International , Inc. He has participated in the founding of more than a dozen companies including U.S. Telephone, Inc., (renamed Sprint by United Telephone), and Somerset Energy, Inc. He is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma with a B.B.A. in Accounting.

Dr. Roscoe Gardner Bartlett (born June 3, 1926) is a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 6th district of the State of Maryland since 1993. He often refers to himself not as a lawmaker but rather as a "citizen legislator."

Bartlett completed his early education in a one-room schoolhouse. He attended ColumbiaUnionCollege where he majored in theology and biology and minored in chemistry with the intention of becoming a minister. Considered too young for the ministry after receiving his bachelor's degree at age 21, Bartlett was encouraged to attend graduate school at the University of Maryland, College Park. He studied anatomy, physiology, and zoology earning a Master's degree in physiology. Bartlett was then hired as a UMD faculty member and taught anatomy, physiology and zoology while earning a Ph.D. in physiology. He was elected by the sixth district of Maryland—the western and more conservative part of the state including Allegany, Frederick, Garrett and Washington counties—to the United States Congress in 1992.

Bartlett currently serves on the following U.S. House committees:

• Chairman of the Projection Forces Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee.
• Vice Chairman of the House Small Business Committee.
• Senior member of the House Science Committee.

A vocal proponent of  the HubbertPeak theory, Bartlett argues strongly in favor of preparation for a decline in the production of fossil fuels. He is also the only member of the Maryland delegation who is pro-life on abortion issues.

Bartlett and his wife, Ellen, have ten children and twelve grandchildren. Prior to his election to Congress, Bartlett pursued careers as a professor, research scientist and inventor, business owner, and farmer. He is a Seventh-day Adventist. Bartlett retired from teaching and building homes but continues to raise sheep and goats on his farm.

Dr. Roger H. Bezdek, President, Management Information Services, Inc., has 30 years experience in research and management in the energy, utility, environmental, and regulatory areas, serving in private industry, academia, and the federal government, and is the founder and president of Management Information Services, Inc. – a Washington, D.C.-based economic and energy research firm.  He has served as Corporate Director, Corporate President and CEO, University Professor, Research Director in ERDA/DOE, Special Advisor on Energy in the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury, U.S. energy delegate to the European Community and to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and as a participant in the State Department AMPART program.  He has served as a consultant to the White House, Federal and state government agencies, and various corporations and research organizations, including the National Academies of Science, the National Science Foundation, NASA, DOE, DOD, EPA, IBM, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Commonwealth Edison, Eastman Kodak, Washington Gas Co., American Management Association, ICF, A.D. Little, National Energy Technology Laboratory, Electric Power Research Institute, Edison Electric Institute, National Coal Council, and Nuclear Energy Institute.  During 2003/04, he served on the select Federal Task Force charged with rebuilding the economy of Iraq and is currently serving as a member of the joint U.S. National Academies of Science/Chinese Academy of Sciences Committee on Energy Futures and Air Pollution in Urban China and the United States.

Dr. Bezdek received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Illinois (Urbana), is an internationally recognized expert in energy market analysis, R&D assessment, and energy forecasting.  He is the author of four books and of 200 articles in scientific and technical journals and serves as an editorial board member and peer-reviewer for various professional publications.  He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards (including awards from the White House, the Energy Department, the Treasury Department, the National Science Foundation, the Wall Street Journal, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the USSR Academy of Sciences), has served as a U.S. representative to international organizations on energy and environmental issues, and lectures frequently on energy research issues, economic forecasting, energy, and environmental topics.

Charles Brister, has more than 25 years experience in energy. He is presently a Measurement While Drilling Field Engineer providing directional surveying and logging while drilling services for Exploration and Production companies in the RockyMountain region. This includes geosteering horizontal wellbores in extremely thin productive zones. Earlier oilfield experience was obtained in Gulf of Mexico offshore exploration in what was at the time considered deep water. Other areas of energy experience came following the oil price collapse of 1986 as a National Product Manager for a manufacturer of critical component of Gas Turbine, Coal and Nuclear Power Plants. With a long time interest in our energy future, beginning in the early 1980s, he designed and installed solar photovoltaic and thermal systems for industrial and home use and provided Home Energy Ratings in an effort to promote energy conservation.  

Melody Chase is an actor and mother who works and lives with her four year old son, Keller, in Austin, Texas. Melody has played a wide range of parts in many feature films - from the faithful wife and mother featured in Oil Storm, to a "Biker Babe" with the Bandido motorcycle gang in the her most recent film, Texas Chainsaw Prequel. 

Julian Darley is the founder of Global Public Media and the founder and director of Post Carbon Institute. He has an eclectic education: an MSc in Environment and Sociology from University of Surrey, UK, which led to a published thesis examining the coverage of complex environmental issues in the foremost radio current affairs programmes at the BBC; he also has an MA in Journalism and Communications from the University of Texas at Austin, culminating in a thesis about the elimination of television; and a BA in Music & Russian, which led to being a classical music critic, followed strangely enough, by working on, and eventually directing, rock videos and becoming a script doctor in Hollywood. Julian’s other previous careers include laboratory scientist, musicologist, film-maker, language teacher, translator, software architect, and environmental policy advisor.  In pursuit of better understanding the kind of hydrocarbon trap we are in, Julian wrote a book called High Noon for Natural Gas: the New Energy Crisis about the natural gas crisis building in North America and a growing number of other industrialized nations. He is also working on another book (in collaboration with Celine Rich & DaveRoom) on how and why we need global relocalization of economy, society, and culture. Julian currently lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

The Post Carbon Institute is an educational & research institute and think-tank that explores responses to living in a low energy world. The institute is based on the assumption that the availability of hydrocarbon energy in the world in the form of oil and gas is declining and that maintaining extraction levels of these energy sources is now becoming problematic. Post Carbon Institute aims to develop ways of living within our solar ration.  The Post Carbon Institute advocates global relocalization of community economies and moving from a fuel to a foot economy, so that people are able to get their daily needs within walking distance. There are now many Post Carbon communities, colloquially called ‘Outposts’, throughout the US, Canada, and several other countries. They are working on creating local systems for money, food, and energy.

Global Public Media has been formed to help existing public service information organizations give a broader, deeper, and more interactive public information service on a range of topics. In-depth radio, television, and print interviews have been developed and presented through an online broadcasting site (www.globalpublicmedia.com). Global Public Media is now best known for its interviews with the pioneers of peak oil and gas, though it was established with a wide remit to deliver to the public in-depth and complex information about any matter that concerns the destruction of life support systems and life itself.

Peter A. Dea is Chief Executive Officer, President and a member of the Board of Directors of Western Gas Resources, Inc., Denver, Colorado since 2001. Mr. Dea has 23 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. He had served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Barrett Resources Corporation until August 2001 where he had held several other executive positions at Barrett since 1994 including Executive Vice President – Exploration.  Prior to joining Barrett, Mr. Dea held various management and geologic positions for Exxon Company USA. Mr. Dea serves on the Board of Trustees or Advisors for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, Western State College,  BusinessSchool at the University of Colorado Denver and ACE Scholarships. In addition to receiving geology degrees from the University of Montana, M.S. and Western State College, B.A., Mr. Dea also attended the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program. He also serves on trade association boards including, Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, Colorado Oil and Gas Association and the American Geologic Institute Foundation.

Jeremy Gilbert.  Born and educated in Ireland.  Moderatorship in Mathematics from DublinUniversity.  Joined BP in 1964, worked as production engineer in Libya and then helped introduce the new technique of reservoir simulation into BP - working in Libya, US, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi - prior to eight years in Iran in reservoir engineering posts and as Planning Manager.  From 1979, supervised BP’s North Sea reservoir engineering and later managed all BP’s UK petroleum and reservoir engineering activities.  Worked in San Francisco as Vice President of BP Alaska Exploration before returning to UK in1987 as Technical Manager for the development of Wytch Farm field.  Appointed BP’s Chief Petroleum Engineer, responsible for the company’s worldwide petroleum engineering performance and for an associated R. and D. program, in 1988; later became Resource Development Manger, overseeing technical recruitment and helping design and implement the ‘Challenge’ program for new staff.  In subsequent posts worked on a range of staff development, equity and major legal issues in London, Houston and Anchorage.  Retired from BP in 2001.  Is now Managing Director of Barrelmore Ltd., a company providing technical audit and training support to the oil industry worldwide.  Has been Chairman of Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh)’s Industrial Advisory Board, a member of ImperialCollege (London)’s and of University of Alaska (Fairbanks)’s Industrial Advisory Boards, an external examiner for Masters’ courses at Robert Gordon’s University (Aberdeen) and Heriot-Watt Universities.  Has also occupied several significant posts in the Society of Petroleum Engineers, including that of Chairman of the London Section.   Lives in West Cork, Ireland - where he and his wife own a bookshop.

Henry Groppe founded Groppe, Long & Littell in 1955.  The Houston, Texas based energy consulting firm serves corporate, government and private clients and is noted for its long range forecasts of oil and gas supply, demand and prices.  His prior experience included positions with Texaco, Dow, Monsanto and Arabian American Oil Company (in Saudi Arabia). He has served as a Charter Member of the Texas Governor’s Energy Advisory Council and a Director of the United States Energy Association (The U.S. Member Committee of the World Energy Council). He is a former director of Tom Brown, Inc., Transco Energy Company, Antara Resources, First City Energy Finance Company and Space Industries International. Mr. Groppe is a distinguished graduate of the University of Texas College of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and served as an officer in the U.S. Navy. Mr. Groppe is a Distinguished Graduate of The University of Texas College of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, a member and former chairman The University of Texas Engineering Foundation Advisory Council and founder of The University of Texas Chemical Engineering Alumni Association.

Charles A. S. Hall is a Systems Ecologist who obtained his PhD working with Howard Odum, the great energy theorist. He is interested in the application of integrative tools of science, including especially empirical simulation modeling, to the understanding and management of complex systems of nature and of people and nature.  His principal focus throughout the diversity of projects he has been involved with is, and always has been, the examination of how organisms and societies invest energy in resource exploitation, and how such investments change as the quality of resources changes. These changes are often summarized as EROI.  He has applied these approaches to small rivers, estuaries, tropical forests, fish migrations, pollution, tropical land use change, petroleum extraction, and the national economies of the United States, Argentina and Costa Rica.  Most recently his interests have been toward integrative geographical modeling of environments and economies, especially in the tropics.  His ultimate goal is to develop biophysical economics as an alternative to neoclassical economics, which he believes fatally flawed on many levels.  He also believes that EROI will be a principal determinant of the future of Western Civilization in ways we can barely imagine today.  

Kelli Kammerer, has worked as an Alternative Fuel Vehicle Consultant with American Honda Motor Company since 2001 and has worked with the automotive industry for the past seven years. A Utah native with an undergraduate degree in Business and an Executive MBA from the University of Utah, her professional experience also includes 13 years in the mining industry.  As an active member of the Clean Cities Coalitions since 1998 she has gained first hand experience and knowledge in alternative fuels for transportation.

Jason Mark, Director of the Clean Vehicles Program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, researches advanced vehicle technologies and alternative fuels for UCS. He has authored several studies in the transportation and energy field, including two recent UCS reports, Greener SUVs: A Blueprint for Cleaner, More Efficient Light Trucks and Zeroing Out Pollution: The Promise of Fuel Cell Vehicles. Before joining UCS in 1995, Jason worked as a consultant on transportation policy analysis and mobile source modeling. His experience also includes work at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, where he focused on various renewable energy and transportation technologies, and the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at PrincetonUniversity. A native of Vermont, Jason developed an appreciation for the great outdoors early on. He holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from PrincetonUniversity and a master's in energy and resources from the University of California at Berkeley. A recognized expert on advanced vehicle technologies, Jason regularly appears on network news programs such as the CBS Evening News and in newspapers such as the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

Charles T. Maxwell, Senior Energy Analyst with Weeden & Co., LP (Greenwich, CT), has worked in the energy field for 36 years.  Charley entered the oil industry in 1957 and worked for a major international oil company for 12 years in US, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In 1968 he joined a well-known Wall Street firm as an oil analyst and was ranked by Institutional Investor as the No. 1 oil analyst in 1972, 1974, 1977, and 1981-1986. Barron’s magazine dubbed Charlie “dean of the energy analysts” in their introduction to his article on peak oil, “The Gathering Storm,” published in November 2004.

Paul Morris is an expert in planning and facilitating the development of “livable” communities through the integration of sustainable land use and transportation, while creating settings that connect people to a unique sense of place (“PlaceMaking”).  These communities emphasize compact urban design, mixed uses, and proximity to mass transit, as well as building design that privileges energy efficiency.  PlaceMaking is therefore a key element in our response to the challenges of life after Peak Oil.  Mr. Morris’ career of more than 20 years has been devoted to helping public- and private-sector clients find solutions to technically complex, politically sensitive challenges that require consensus-building. A registered landscape architect and mediator, Mr. Morris graduated from the University of Oregon and holds a Graduate Certificate in Innovations in Zoning Planning and Development from HarvardUniversity. He is the Managing Principal of PB PlaceMaking, a business unit of Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB), a global planning, engineering, and program and construction management firm.  Mr. Morris’s work has taken him across the U.S. and to Canada, Europe and Japan. His current projects include the Hyattsville Station Public-Private Joint Venture in Hyattsville, Maryland. Local and State officials have endorsed the strategy as a model for transit-oriented development in the Washington, DC region and throughout the U.S.  Other noteworthy projects include the Oklahoma City National Memorial, the Capital Mall to Riverfront Reconnection in Sacramento, and the PLACE³S National Smart Growth Planning Program.  He has taught and lectured at universities across the U.S. and has received numerous professional awards and recognitions.

Pat Murphy is the Executive Director of Community Service, Inc. and the designer of the organization's latest program, The Community Solution. Through this he has been exploring the small community's role in responding to global oil peak and decline. Prior to working for Community Service, Pat was the founder of a software company that developed a "design for manufacturing" program for residential building, which greatly reduced waste in the construction process and allowed better modeling for energy efficiency. He has designed and built active solar homes. Pat worked in the supercomputer business for 20 years including the development of applications for seismic data processing and reservoir modeling for the oil industry.  He has attended the last three ASPO meetings in Europe, taken three trips to Cuba to evaluate their response to Peak Oil, and given keynote speeches on Peak Oil in several venues in the Midwest.

Dr. Michael A. Pacheco joined NREL in January of 2003 to serve as the Director of the NationalBioenergyCenter (NBC.)  The NBC was established by the Secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) in 2000 and is headquartered at NREL. As Center Director, Dr. Pacheco provides strategic guidance, technical direction, and management oversight of the NBC.  In addition to line management responsibility at NREL, Dr. Pacheco is also responsible for coordinating bioenergy research activities supported by DOE and carried out at 5 DOE Laboratories: NREL, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Idaho National Energy & Environmental Laboratory, and Argonne National Laboratory. Dr. Pacheco joined NREL from Louisiana-Pacific Corp., where he served as Manager of Oriented Strand Board Technology and Product Quality and a Corporate Engineering Fellow for four years in Portland, Oregon. Before joining Louisiana-Pacific, Dr. Pacheco was a Vice President at Energy BioSystems Corp in Houston, Texas, where he led Process Development efforts to commercialize a bio-catalytic process for desulfurizing petroleum diesel and gasoline. Earlier, Dr. Pacheco held numerous supervisory positions in R&D during 16 years in the petrochemical industry, working for Amoco Oil Corp. and Conoco Oil Co. He earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, and a B.S. in chemical engineering from ClarksonUniversity in Potsdam, N.Y.

Terry Penney, Technology Manager, FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies, National Renewable Energy Laboratory.  Prior to joining NREL, he worked for Concentration, Heat and Momentum (CHAM) a consulting group headed by Prof. Brian Spalding based in London developing unique finite element computational codes for multiphase heat and mass transfer problems. He also worked Von Karmen Facility at the ArnoldEngineeringDevelopmentCenter in middle Tennessee where he worked on the Space Shuttle program. At NREL he has worked on Ocean Energy, Buildings research, Optical and Thermal Fluid Science. More recently, he launched the Hybrid Vehicle program in 1992, which grew into the Partnership for New Generation Vehicles (PNGV) between the government and GM, Ford and DaimlerChyrsler.  Currently he is NREL's Technology Manager for Freedom Car and Advanced Vehicles responsible for both alternative fuels and advanced vehicles projects in both light and heavy-duty hybrid platforms.

 He has more than 50 technical publications to his credit, including energy-related articles in Scientific American and the Encyclopedia Britannica. Terry has worked on computational fluid dynamics problems for a variety of applications and has pushed math-based analysis, which has evolved simultaneous multi-physics based tools with optimization including six-sigma, optimization and virtual proving ground. He has 30 years experience in testing and analysis in aerodynamics, heated mass transfer components, and advanced thermodynamic cycles, including gas turbines. He is an SAE member, a Baldridge team competition examiner, National Science Bowl scientific judge and winner of the Van Morris Award for performance.  His undergraduate degree was from PurdueUniversity in Aeronautical Engineering and Engineering Science and his graduate work was at the University of Tennessee in Mechanical Engineering.

Thomas A. Petrie is Chairman and CEO of Petrie Parkman & Co., an energy investment banking firm. He is the former Managing Director and Senior Oil Analyst of The First Boston Corporation. Over his career, Mr. Petrie has been an active advisor on more than $130 billion of energy-related mergers and acquisitions. He is an expert on petroleum valuation, merger and acquisition trends and energy policy. For eight consecutive years, he was ranked the number one oil analyst in the exploration/independent sector by Institutional Investor. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst and past President and member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Petroleum Investment Analysts. Mr. Petrie earned a BS degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and an MSBA from BostonUniversity.  He served for six years as a Trustee of the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and is a Trustee of the Denver Art Museum, The Colorado Conservation Trust, The Colorado Endowment for the Humanities, and serves on the National Advisory Board of the C.M. Russell Museum as well as the Board of Directors of The Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation.

State Representative Jack Pommer (D-BoulderCounty) represents Boulder and Longmont. He’s chair of the Transportation and Energy Committee, and serves on the Education and Joint Computer Management Committees. Pommer was first elected in 2002.  Outside of the legislature, Pommer runs Metrovision Video Productions, a company he co-founded in 1989. Rep. Pommer serves on the state Read to Achieve Board and volunteers in the Boulder Valley Public Schools. He and his wife Jane have a daughter Addie who is 10 years old and a son Brock who is 8 years old.

Jeff Probst was named President and CEO of Blue Sun in January 2003. Previously, he held key management positions with leading American corporations that successfully launched innovative technologies and brands, both in the United States and internationally.  Mr. Probst's career in the consumer battery industry featured positions with Gould Electronics and subsequently with Duracell, now divisions of Gillette. Mr. Probst had high level involvement in the development and launch of virtually all of the new consumer battery technologies of the past two decades. In launching these products, Mr. Probst differentiated commodity-based sales to pioneer premium positioning, pricing, and strategic alliances, and develop substantial new business sales and margins. At Ecolab Inc., the world leader in advanced cleaning technologies for the global hospitality, institutional and industrial markets, Mr. Probst expanded Japanese and Asia Pacific markets, and drove overall revenue growth through the development of new sales and marketing strategies as well as products.  Jeff holds a Master of International Management from the American Graduate School of International Management, and a B.S. in Economics from MiamiUniversity.

Megan Quinn is Outreach Director for The Community Solution (www.communitysolution.org) in Yellow Springs, Ohio and Project Coordinator for "Agraria," the development of a model post-oil community. She is a graduate of MiamiUniversity in Oxford, Ohio where she studied Peak Oil and its implications for U.S. foreign policy. She helped organize and served as master of ceremonies for the First and Second U.S. Conferences on Peak Oil and Community Solutions, which together drew over 600 people. Megan has traveled to Cuba to study and to film a documentary, “The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil,” which will be released in January 2006.

John Sheehan has over 20 years of experience as biochemical engineer in industry and government. He has worked as a senior engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO for the past twelve years. At NREL, Mr. Sheehan has had a number of different responsibilities, including:

• Project management of the U.S. DOE's Biodiesel Program
• Life cycle assessment of biodiesel from soybean oil
• Life cycle assessment of ethanol made from corn stover
• Strategic planning and analysis for U.S. DOE's Bioethanol Program and the newly consolidated Biomass Program
• Multi-year technical planning

Prior to coming to NREL, Sheehan worked as a process engineer at Merck Pharmaceutical and a biochemical engineer at the corporate research center of the specialty chemicals company, W.R. Grace. He has a masters in biochemical engineering from LehighUniversity and a bachelors degree in chemical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Chris Skrebowski, Editor of the UK Petroleum Review, has spent his entire career in the oil industry split roughly two-thirds as an oil journalist and one-third as a planner/market analyst within the industry.  He became editor of Petroleum Review in June 1997 having edited Petroleum Economist for the previous three years.  Prior to that he spent eight years working for the Saudis as an oil market analyst in London.  Chris started his working career in 1970 as a long-term planner for BP and then joined Petroleum Times as a journalist just before the first oil crisis of 1973/74. In the late 1970s he edited Offshore Services, an offshore magazine.  As well as writing extensively for a range of oil industry related publications he has also broadcast on radio and TV on oil and gas subjects. One of the founder members of the European ASPO group, he has a great interest in oil depletion and its consequences.

Matthew Simmons is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Simmons & Company International, a specialized energy investment banking firm. The firm has completed approximately 600 investment banking projects for its worldwide energy clients at a combined dollar value in excess of $65 billion.

Mr. Simmons was raised in Kaysville, Utah. He graduated cum laude from the University of Utah and received an MBA with Distinction from HarvardBusinessSchool. He served on the faculty of HarvardBusinessSchool as a Research Associate for two years and was a Doctoral Candidate.

Mr. Simmons began a small investment bank/advisory firm in Boston. Among his early clients were several subsea service companies. By 1973, almost all of his clients were oil service companies. Following the 1973 Oil Shock, Simmons decided to create a Houston-based firm to concentrate on providing highest quality investment banking advice to the worldwide oil service industry. Over time, the specialization expanded into investment banking covering all aspects of the global energy industry.

Today the firm has approximately 145 employees and enjoys a leading role as one of the largest energy investment banking groups in the world. Its offices are in Houston, Texas; London, England; Boston, Massachusetts and Aberdeen, Scotland. 

He serves on the Board of Directors of Brown-Forman Corporation, The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (Boston), HoustonTechnologyCenter (Houston) and the Center for Houston’s Future (Houston). Along with his wife, he is Co-Chairman of the National Trust Council. He also serves on The University of Texas’ M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Foundation Board of Visitors (Houston) and is a Trustee of the Bermuda Biological Station for Research. In addition, he is past Chairman of the National Ocean Industry Association. Mr. Simmons serves on the Board of Dean’s Advisors of Harvard Business School and is a past President of the Harvard Business School Alumni Association and a former member of the Visiting Committee of Harvard Business School. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and The Atlantic Council of the United States.

Mr. Simmons’ recently published book Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy has been listed on the Wall Street Journal’s best-seller list. He has also published numerous energy papers for industry journals and is a frequent speaker at government forums, energy symposiums and in board rooms of many leading energy companies around the world.  Mr. Simmons is married and has five daughters. His hobbies include watercolors, cooking, writing and travel.

CONFERENCE CO-HOSTS

John Hickenlooper, Mayor of the City & County of Denver. A small businessman who had never previously run for political office, John Hickenlooper was elected Mayor of Denver on June 3, 2003, and inaugurated on July 21, 2003. Since taking office, Mayor Hickenlooper passed a citywide charter reform initiative to modernize Denver’s personnel system, overcame a $70 million deficit to balance the City budget while averting major cuts in services and massive layoffs, reached a deal with United and Frontier Airlines that enables both carriers to grow at Denver International Airport, implemented the most sweeping set of police reforms in Denver’s history, built an unprecedented partnership with Denver Public Schools, launched efforts to create a more business friendly environment in city government, initiated a citywide campaign to end homelessness, and ushered in a new era of bipartisan regional cooperation culminating in the passage of the largest regional transit initiative in the history of the United States. In April 2005 – less than two years into his first term – TIME Magazine named Mayor Hickenlooper one of the top five “big-city” mayors in America.

Hickenlooper’s passion for Denver began in 1981 when his career as an exploration geologist brought him to Buckhorn Petroleum, where he worked for five years. After the collapse of the oil industry, he found himself with a healthy severance check, no immediate job prospects, and time on his hands. Inspired by a visit to a northern California brewpub, he spent two years developing the Wynkoop Brewing Company, the first brewpub in the Rocky Mountains.

A respected entrepreneur, Hickenlooper was also involved with numerous downtown Denver renovation and development projects and is credited as one of the pioneers that helped revitalize Denver’s Lower Downtown historic district. In recognition of his efforts supporting preservation in Denver and downtowns across the country, Hickenlooper received a National Preservation Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1997.

Steve Andrews has been a Denver-based energy consultant and freelance writer for over 25 years.  After interviewing Dr. M. King Hubbert at his home during the 1980s, Steve steadily followed the world oil picture.  He began speaking and writing about world oil issues during the 1990s and he co-chaired Denver’s “World Oil Forum—“When Will Global Oil Production Peak?” in 1998.  After attending and presenting at previous European ASPO Conferences, he helped establish ASPO-USA this June and is co-chairing the Denver conference.

James R. Udall has directed the Community Office for Resource Efficiency (CORE), a nonprofit organization in western Colorado, since 1994.  Udall lectures widely on the big energy picture, including keynote presentations at numerous renewable energy conferences.  CORE promotes renewable energy and energy efficiency in partnership with Holy Cross Energy, a rural electric utility serving 50,000 customers. Holy Cross leads U.S. utilities in the percentage of its customers who buy wind power, and its renewable energy and energy efficiency programs will keep one billion pounds of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere over the next 20 years.  In 1998, CORE started the first “solar production incentive” program in the United States; the program pays customers who install PV systems 25¢/kilowatt-hour for their energy. In 2000, CORE started the world’s first Renewable Energy Mitigation Fund, which has collected $3,000,000 in building permit fees to install renewable energy systems.  Articles about CORE’s work have recently appeared in Public Power, the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor,EnvironmentalBuilding News, the Denver Post and RockyMountain News.  Three years ago, Udall installed a grid-connected photovoltaic system and solar hot water heating system on his own home. This solar retrofit keeps 20,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, out of the atmosphere each year.