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3 Things to Know About Me...
1. I am a huge advocate for entrepreneurship. If anyone asks me if they should start a company, I say yes! (It's not really always the right decision for everyone : ) An accomplishment in my career I'm particularly proud of is scaling the Boots to Business program for the U.S. Small Business Administration. The program helps thousands of transitioning veterans become business owners every year. America needs to keep creating "greatest generations" of vetrepreneurs!
2. My new favorite person in the entire world is my family's 8 month old Boxer named Astrid. (I know dogs aren't homo sapiens.) Boxers are amazing dogs, and ours brings lots of joy to my 10 year old son, 12 year old daughter, wife and many other people and dogs in my Washington, D.C neighborhood. A man's and family's best friend for sure.
3. At this stage of my career, I've experienced military service, government administration, big and small business management, and even some non-profit work. From combat to corporate, I've learned a lot about people, leadership, and making things happen. While I hope to have at least 2 decades of work ahead of me, I am really enjoying trying to create career opportunities for the next generations. Arbo and entrepreneurship allow me to give back in that way, which I find very rewarding.
"Arbonauts" are all about Energy Infrastructure
What is Arbo?
Arbo provides software, analytics, research, and services to the energy transportation, trading, and marketing industries for commercial decision analysis and infrastructure intelligence. Our software platforms digitize workflows, integrate market data, and structure millions of regulatory filings to better connect buyers and sellers of physical energy and enable the operation and evolution of critical infrastructure. Our research and advisory services help customers benchmark performance, identify market opportunities, assess competitive intelligence, identify arbitrage opportunities, predict project permitting timelines, and reduce operational risks.
OUR VISION: To help sustain America's ability to build and operate energy infrastructure.
OUR MISSION: Transform energy regulatory data into business intelligence and insights that drive infrastructure commerce and permitting decisions.
Who are Arbo's customers?
Arbo supports many of the leading natural gas and oil pipeline companies and many global commodity trading houses. We also have commodity focused hedge-fund customers, some of the supermajors and refiners, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
While we're mostly focused on energy transportation infrastructure, having a diverse customer base that spans the value chain gives us a wide lens that helps us focus better on the unique needs of the individual customers.
We are very proud that most of our customers have been with us for many years now.
What are some examples of how Arbo helps?
One problem we solve is providing more precision to planning for projects. Over the past 20 years, building energy infrastructure has become much more difficult. The regulatory process has become less predictable and issuance of permits are challenged in court by well funded and legally sophisticated opposition groups.
Arbo supports major capital expenditures with custom analyses of cost, schedule and opposition tactics for historical, hypothetical, and in-progress projects.
The below chart shows line item cost distribution for a set of comparable pipeline projects of interest to a client, so they could benchmark their costs. Often developers don't have access to external data.
We combine lots of data on the regulatory and permitting process with expertise on both the process, associated legal proceedings, and market impacts. We deliver this data to help infrastructure developers better anticipate and manage the cost and schedule risks both in the planning stage and through construction. Once a project goes in service we assist with tariff and rate optimization and interpreting regulatory and policy events impacting operations.
What makes Arbo different and special?
Arbo transforms energy regulatory data into business intelligence and insights that drive infrastructure permitting and support commerce decisions. We also help anticipate and interpret (the other AI) emerging energy evolution and policy risks and opportunities.
We are known for high touch service and bringing unique analytical methodologies to hard to quantify domains. For instance, the map of Texas below tracked land condemnation activity as an indicator of pipeline progress. The more involuntary the acquisition indicates more risk to the schedule and is an important consideration in choosing a route.
What area does Arbo focus on?
Arbo brings together data and expertise in some domains that have major impacts on the development and operation of energy infrastructure, both incumbent, primarily oil and gas assets, and emerging low carbon infrastructure for renewables, carbon sequestration, and hydrogen. Opportunities and challenges often overlap for incumbent and emerging infrastructure as the energy industry evolves.
We help customers anticipate and interpret events and the evolving landscape in the domains pictured below with data, analytics, research, and responsive analyses.
What are you working on going into 2024?
We are focused on the next wave of massive infrastructure investments and build out needed to power the energy transition. Most power generation projects are delayed but predictive models sharpen capacity addition forecasts.
The below chart shows projected changes to the source of power generation in the U.S. The source of generation impacts the reliability, affordability, and sustainability of the power grid.
The ability to build power generation infrastructure is critical to net zero goals, and accurate capacity addition timing is critical to energy commerce - so project delays are of concern to Arbo and many of our customers throughout the value chain.