Greybeard Compliance Services
Our Greybeards
Mike Gabriel
Co-Founder
Mike’s 30+ years in power generation began as a nuclear submarine officer. After 11 years of active duty, including a tour as an instructor and Master Training Specialist at the Navy’s Nuclear Power School, he joined General Electric as a Gas Turbine Controls Field Engineer and later managed GE Energy’s Top Issues team. He conducted over 40 power plant assessments, domestically and internationally, as part of GE’s Plant Assessment team.
He joined Gas Turbine Efficiency (GTE) in 2009, holding several technical roles. When Wood Group bought GTE, Mike became the product manager for gas turbine modifications and conversions, with a focus on emission reduction and fuel conversion projects. When EthosEnergy Group was formed as a joint venture between Wood Group and Siemens, he joined their Operations and Maintenance department to focus on NERC compliance, where he specialized in CIP compliance as well as cyber and physical security, while also assisting with several Operations and Planning standards. He successfully conducted or guided over 30 gas turbine plants through numerous gap analyses, gap closure plans, self certifications, audits (including a super-audit, where FERC observed NERC observing the regional entity auditing the registered entity), NERC alert responses, training, Cyber Security Incident Response exercises, physical security assessments and division of responsibility negotiations. He continued his NERC compliance career as the Director of Corporate Operations at Cooper Compliance, where he guided an entity through a forced registration as a Transmission Operator, including implementing a CIP medium compliance program for their control centers.
He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the North American Generator Forum (NAGF) and previously served as the NAGF Deputy Chief Operating Officer, the NAGF Secretary. He also chaired the NAGF’s Peer Review Working Group, the Cold Weather Preparations Working Group, co-chaired the Security Practices Working Group and served on the Advisory Committee. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and a Master of Business Administration.
He is a frequent speaker at industry meetings, having presented on both compliance and technical topics at several regional entity conferences, PowerGen conferences, the Combustion Turbine Operations Technical Forum (CTOTF), the Western Interconnection Compliance Forum (WICF) and the NAGF, including chairing several of the NAGF meetings.
David Lemmons
Co-Founder
David began his electric industry career over 30 years ago in the Rates and Regulations department at Southwestern Public Service Company in Texas, where he dealt with rate design and regulatory rules at the federal and state levels. David began dealing directly with the NERC Policies and regional operating rules (the predecessors to today’s NERC and Regional Standards) in 1997 while performing studies for day-ahead generation planning in the Energy Trading department with New Century Energies, which then became Xcel Energy. In 2001, David transitioned to working with regional entities and market organizations to develop the market and reliability rules these organizations use. During this time, David participated in MISO, SPP, WECC and NERC meetings where reliability and market rules were developed to ensure the grid continued to operate reliably as the industry structure was changing.
After the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, David helped develop the Version 0 Reliability Standards from the NERC Policies and the WECC Regional Criteria. He has been a team member on numerous NERC Standard Drafting Teams including serving as chair for Project 2007-12 (BAL-003-1) and Project 2010-14.2.2 (BAL-004 Retirement) and as a member on Project 2006-08 (IRO-006-5) and Project 2010-14.1 (BAL-001 and BAL-002). In the WECC, David chaired the drafting teams that developed the BAL-002-WECC-2 and the IRO-006-WECC-2 standards. He was a member and then chaired the WECC Minimum Operating Reliability Criteria Working Group, was an at-large member of the Unscheduled Flow Administrative Subcommittee and a voting member of the WECC Market Interface Committee and Operations Committee. In addition, he actively participated in additional committees including the Performance Working Group and the Compliance Monitoring and Operations Practices Subcommittee.
In 2017, he moved to EthosEnergy Group as a manager of NERC Compliance, where he managed the broad regulatory compliance work for approximately 30 registered entities. This work included leading the development of compliance programs, including internal controls, training, self-certifications, identification of and filing self-reports, and negotiation of non-compliance penalties. In 2020, David moved to Cooper Compliance Corporation where he worked with renewable generator owners and operators, transmission operators and distribution providers to ensure compliance with NERC and Regional Reliability Standards.
David has participated in audits under several Regional Entities. He is a recognized industry expert and has presented to multiple organizations on compliance and operational related issues, including NERC technical workshops, NERC and WECC standing committees, the North American Generator Forum (NAGF) and the Combustion Turbine Operations Technical Forum. He also participated on a joint NAGF/NATF task force to develop best practices recommendations related to PRC-027-1. He currently chairs the NERC Project 2017-01 Standard Drafting Team, which is developing revisions to the BAL-003 standard related to frequency response requirements.
David holds a Master of Science in Finance and Economics and a Bachelor of Business Administration, Finance and Marketing from West Texas A&M University. He was a NERC Certified Balancing and Interchange Operator from 2008-2013.