Our Team

The UKA Group is a leading international wind and solar energy developer across Germany, Europe and the United States. Our expert team around the world is committed to honesty and integrity that landowners and communities can rely on from the project’s conception through operations. Meet the expert team members at our North American branch in Stuart, Florida.  We have been developing renewable energy for more than 20 years contributing to climate change solutions.

Daniel DuBois

Managing Director

  • Daniel is an executive energy professional with more than 25 years of expertise in the development, permitting and construction of energy infrastructure.
  • He joined UKA in 2018 and is responsible for the US organization, Stuart office and execution of the business plan.
  • He has led the development and permitting of more than 2,000 MW of power generation across North America including wind, solar and battery storage.
  • He has been a member of the New York Bar Association since 1998, and previously led cross-functional teams at US Generating, Toshiba and Acciona Energy North America.

 

Michael Hoadley

Regional Team Leader

  • Michael is an executive energy professional with more than 30 years of expertise in Commercial Real Estate and 8 years in the development, permitting and construction of energy infrastructure.
  • He joined UKA in 2021 and is responsible for the Texas office and execution of the business plan.
  • He has been licensed as a real estate broker in 8 states and has done land acquisition and development work for numerous energy companies.

 

Denis Onwualu

Senior Project Manager

  • Denis is a PMI Certified Project Management Professional (PMP) with over 35 years Energy industry experience, primarily in Oil & Gas, Renewable Energy (Wind & Solar), Fossil and Nuclear Energy.
  • His multi-faceted skill set includes Project Development and Execution, Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management.
  • He has a track record of managing and successfully delivering multi-million dollar capital projects in the United States, Africa and Saudi Arabia.
  • He joined UKA in 2021, has a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Tuskegee University and an MBA in Project Management from Florida Institute of Technology.

 

Dennis Stout

Land and Project Manager

  • Dennis is a utility-scale renewable energy veteran with nearly 15 years of wind, solar, and battery storage development experience in a dozen states.
  • He has led or assisted on projects from Arizona to Pennsylvania and Texas to Wyoming and negotiated literally thousands of agreements totaling hundreds of thousands of acres. His executed agreements have an aggregated landowner value in excess of $1 billion.
  • He has a Bachelor of Science in Radio/TV Communications, an MBA, PMP, RWA, and is a Texas licensed real estate agent. He also produces educational videos on windfarms hosted at www.windfarmguy.com.

 

Charles D. Wright

Head of Development

  • Charles is a renewable energy professional with expertise in development, M&A, project finance, offtake procurement and project management.
  • He has worked on the origination, financing, and development of more than 2.5 GWs of wind and solar energy projects.
  • He has previously worked at RedWind Renewables.

 

Ella Taylor

Project Developer

  • Ella is a professional land planner and site designer with experience working in sustainable development.
  • She earned her Bachelor’s of Science in Sustainability and the Built Environment and her Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Florida.

 

Benjamin Orcutt

Senior Project Developer

  • Ben has more than 13 years of experience in project management in the renewable energy development, energy infrastructure, and energy environmental consulting spaces.
  • He has worked on development in excess of 1 GW of solar, BESS, geothermal, and wind projects throughout the U.S.
  • Ben earned a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Indiana State University and Master of Science in Environmental Policy and Management from American Public University.

 

Christian Alvear

Junior Project Developer

  • Christian is a renewable energy professional specializing in development, market analysis, energy yield assessments, and land prospecting.
  • He earned his Bachelor’s of Science in Wind Energy with a Minor in Mathematics from Texas Tech University in May 2020.
  • He has a combined 3 years of experience in electricity through his time as a REP broker for business owners in Houston, Texas and as an engineer at South Plains Electric Co-Op in Lubbock, Texas.

 

Trevor Moon

Junior Project Developer

  • Trevor is a renewable energy professional specializing in development, resource assessment, and site design.
  • He earned his Bachelor’s of Science in Wind Energy from Texas Tech University.

 

Richard Howell

Procurement Engineer

  • Richard comes to UKA North America from PowerHome Solar, where he directed the purchasing and inventory for both commercial and residential operations.
  • He is a supply chain professional with 15 years’ experience.
  • He earned his LLB (UK Law degree) from University of London in June 2014.

 

Reynaldo Rodriguez

Transmission Planning Engineer

  • Reynaldo is an electrical engineer with six years of consulting experience and more than 14 years of experience performing system transmission planning in accordance with NERC reliability and design standards. He also boasts more than 30 years of experience in power system operations and other industrial activities with proven ability to perform high level studies to evaluate the performance of the bulk power system.
  • Reynaldo is an expert in modeling and simulating any power system scenario with excellent abilities in system planning tools like PSSE, ASPEN, PSLF, TARA and MUST.

 

Evelyn Parra Benavides

Assistant Electrical Engineer

  • Evelyn is an Electrical Engineer with a major in Power Systems with more than 20 years of experience in conducting transmission planning studies for the design of short and long term investments, contracting and managing the construction of substations and transmission lines associated for the electric utility in Venezuela.
  • She also has 4 years of experience as a PV designer for residential and commercial loads in Puerto Rico.
  • She joined UKA in 2021 as Assistant Electrical Engineer for the Transmission Planning Group.

 

Oneida McMann

Team Leader of Prospecting

  • Oneida is a renewable energy professional specializing in the identification and qualification of exploratory project locations utilizing various market tools including Global Mapper, Google Earth Pro, PVSyst, and more.
  • She acquired 10 years of renewable energy experience coordinating project needs that included: managing staff allocation, negotiating priorities and resolving scheduling conflicts as Account Manager of NextEra Energy’s Wind Analytics team.

 

Claus Kyhn-Hansen

Prospecting Team Assistant

  • Claus is an environmental consultant since 15 years and ensured environmentally-friendly development through conservation, restoration and protection.
  • His experience includes consulting with private engineering firms and construction contractors to investigate environmental impacts; relocate and monitoring threatened and endangered species; collaborate with local, federal, and state agencies; and obtain environmental permits.
  • Claus earned his Bachelor’s of Science in Marine Biology from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and his Master of Science in Biology, Coastal Ecology, and Seagrass Biology from Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton.

Troy Beal

Senior Construction Manager

  • Troy is a renewable energy professional with over 23 years in the industry specializing in renewable project implementation, startup, construction, and turnover to Operations.
  • He strives on building relationships with the landowners, local government officials and the many different contractors that are needed to build a successful project.
  • A diverse background of working on large multi-project contracts with an array of stakeholders.
  • Troy joined UKA in 2023 as a Senior Construction Manager.

Jeanmari Cardinal

Community Relations Specialist

  • Jeanmari joined UKA in 2022 as a community relations specialist and interacts with landowners, but also sees the development side of the projects.
  • She strives on building relationships with the community members where our projects are located.
  • She has 4 years’ experience in renewable energy with a degree in environmental and biological conservation science.

Daniel Churney

Part-time Community Relations Specialist

  • Before joining UKA in 2021, Dan was a newspaper reporter and freelance writer for 25 years, with his work appearing in publications throughout northern Illinois. A La Salle County native, he also penned two local history books and has been interviewed multiple times on radio and television.
  • He graduated from Illinois State University with a bachelor’s degree in political science and history. He has conducted local history tours and appeared in several independently produced movies.
  • He has years of experience working with public officials, professionals and the general public. In connection with his newspaper work, he was courtroom media coordinator for prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges and media outlets in La Salle, Bureau and Grundy counties.

Daniel S. Zulandt

Associate Attorney

  • Daniel is an attorney admitted to practice law in Ohio and Florida, and provides his experience and support to the development team on legal and regulatory matters.
  • Daniel received his Bachelor’s of Art from Wake Forest University, his Master’s of Arts in Anthropology from Ohio State University and his Juris Doctorate from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.

 

Ramona Rossi

Office Manager

  • Ramona ensures a smooth-running office day-to-day by assisting employees with a variety of tasks. She also works closely with IT and Accounting, acting as a notary for the North America office.
  • Ramona earned her degree in Industrial Management with a minor in Accounting while studying in Germany.

 

Kristy Walker

Contract/Lease Administrator

  • Kristy joined the UKA North America team in 2022.
  • She is a licensed title agent and has over twenty years of real estate experience.
  • Kristy obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Business Management in 2020 from Indian River State College.

 

Lisa Nolan

Corporate Accountant

  • Lisa has more than 15 years of experience in Accounting.
  • She has a Masters in Business Administration with an emphasis in Accounting.

 

UKA is committed to honesty and quality through every step of the renewable energy development process.
Contact us today to learn more about becoming a UKA partner.