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Several alumni participated and others arranged for their company representatives to participate. Executives with their student shadow for March 2007 were:

Pam DiGiovanni (Bus. Admin), Sr. VP-Labor Relations, Fox Entertainment Group, Inc., Beverly Hills, Calif. with Nathan Adame (MGT).
John Ferron (’86 FIN), CFO, Celerity Group, Milpitas, Calif. with Jade Wallin (FIN).
Scott Gibney (’75 ACC), CFO, Southwest Jet Aviation/SJA, LLC, Scottsdale, Ariz. with Josh Fleck (MKT/MGT).
Steve Jordan, director of Construction Services, Ryan Companies U.S. Inc., Phoenix with Erin Lunde (MGT).
Bill Luthy (’68 ACC), controller/CFO, LMS Building Services, Las Vegas with Tom Wahl (ACC).
Yvette Martin (’92 MKT), owner, Nationwide Floor & Window Coverings, Phoenix with Felicia McFarland (MGT/MKT).
Charlie Moore (’92 MKT), VP-Marketing, Maverick Ranch Beef, Denver, Colo. with Savanna Butler (MGT).
Michael Morano (’89 FIN), president & CEO, Sunrise Bank, Scottsdale, Ariz. with Laura Bradshaw (MGT).
Robert Nichols, (’91 FIN) attorney, Miller & Chevalier Chartered, Washington, D.C. with Angelica Rogers (ECO/FIN).
James Roddy (’00 FIN), associate, J.P. Morgan, New York with Adrien Gonzalez (FIN).

And for May 2006:
Jeff Beck (’81 ACC), attorney, Dohrer & Watts PLC, Phoenix with Carol Clark (FIN).
Phil Kafarakis (’82 MGT), VP, McCormick & Co. Inc., Inner Circle, Hunt Valley, Md. with Anna Alexopoulos (MGT).
Chris Lutes, partner, RSM McGladrey, Phoenix, with Nalleli Guzman (ACC).
Blair Robinson (’75 MKT), president & CEO, Northview Bank & Trust, Northfield, Ill. with Jason Platzman (FIN).

The SES team led by Dean Smith, economics, has been active in many projects this semester. Work with the Just Transitions Coalition continued in January with a two day workshop to explore ways to ease the economic impact on the Navajo and Hopi reservations caused by the closure of Mohave Generating Station.

Nick Sheets, junior in economics, and Kim Smith, senior in Applied Indigenous Studies, have been working on projects to develop renewable energy enterprise options for the Just Transitions Coalition. Chrystal Morris, junior AIS, has been working on a project for developing a renewable energy system for the Dilkon Chapter on the Navajo Nation. Chrystal is also working with Smith on alleviating the aftermath of the Former Bennett Freeze area in the Tonalea Chapter. In addition, they will be working this summer on the Shonto Chapter energy development plan.

Sarah Busche (’05 Poli. Sci.), on an internship paid by the Coconino County Career Center, has been working with Smith designing an alternative energy system for the greater Southwest to incorporate utility wind and solar farms and is attempting to quantify life cycle emissions from various energy sources. Chelsea Atwater, junior in economics, has been working with Busche.

Arizona Wind Energy Assessment report has been completed, a research collaboration between faculty in the The W. A. Franke College of Business (FCB) and faculty in the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences (CENS). The Arizona Wind Energy Assessment project was led by Dr. Susan Williams (FCB) and Dr. Tom Acker (CENS). Grant Brummels (graduate student in geographic information systems) performed the significant GIS analysis and Stuart Wells (MBA student) created the maps used in the reports.

The Arizona Wind Energy Assessment contains two analyses. In the first, the developable wind energy potential is determined for eight counties, Apache, Cochise, Coconino, Graham, Greenlee, Mohave, Navajo and Yavapai. Based on the Arizona Wind Map obtained by NAU in 2003, a geographic information system is utilized to determine the windy land. Then, using the GIS, land on which a wind energy project could not be developed is eliminated. There are many reasons why land might not be available for a wind energy project – land use (i.e., National Park Service land), environmental exclusions (i.e., wetlands) and land that has a slope greater than 20% which is not economical to build. After these and other exclusions are considered, the remaining land, developable windy land, is land appropriate for wind energy projects.

Some of this developable windy land is appropriate for development in the near term based upon site specific project economics, land access, and transmission access/availability. These reports made no attempt to apply these additional development criteria because they are project specific and subject to relatively rapid change, but rather assessed the developable wind resource that the state may access over a long term planning horizon (years to decades). In a long-term view, as our traditional energy resources become more costly and the wind turbine technology continues to improve, greater portions of the developable windy land will be appropriate for development based upon these project specific metrics (economics, land and transmission access). The developable windy land information thus is an estimate of the maximum one would expect could be developed in the long term.

The second analysis estimated the economic benefits that would occur within the county if a wind energy project were developed in that county. The economic benefits were determined for Apache, Cochise, Coconino, Graham, Mohave, and Navajo. The benefits are quantified by the number of jobs, wages and salaries, and general economic output within the county as a result of the construction and operation of a wind energy project. The economic benefits reported are valid for wind energy projects in these counties that may occur in the near term (present day through the next several years). The magnitudes of the wind energy project sizes analyzed are typical of what one may expect to be built in Arizona in the near term.

These reports were distributed to the Arizona Corporation Commission, Arizona legislators, county commissioners and supervisors, and members of the Arizona wind energy community (i.e., utilities and developers). The reports are posted at ses.nau.edu/wind/ArizonaWindEnergyAssessment-April2007.shtml.  

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