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.
Emmanuel Wemakoy
Senior RE Project Engineer
- Emmanuel is a Professional Electrical Engineer with experience 10 years of experience in design and construction of high voltage transmission lines, substations, medium voltage collection systems, utility-scale solar and wind projects, and in project grid interconnection supports.
- He also has experience in managing the design aspects of renewable energy projects from development through the completion of construction and continued operations support.
- Emmanuel holds a master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University.
Dennis Stout
Land and Project Manager
- Dennis is a utility-scale renewable energy veteran with nearly 17 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
Vice President 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.
Yuvraj Kshirsagar
Project Development Manager
- Yuvraj is a dynamic clean energy professional with a decade of international expertise and a track record of successfully building and scaling businesses across multiple renewable technologies.
- He has handled utility and distributed energy solar/ battery storage projects from origination/ green fielding, market analysis and strategy, permitting, to project development and management.
- He is an engineer with an advanced degree in MBA.
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.
John Butler
Junior Project Developer
- John Butler earned his Bachelors of Science in Wind Energy from Texas Tech University.
- He is a renewable energy professional specializing in wind/solar development and site design.
Isaac Morales
Junior Project Developer
- Isaac earned his Bachelor of Science in Renewable Energy and Minor in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) from Texas Tech University in May 2023.
- He is a Renewable Energy professional specializing in wind/solar development and site design.
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
Director of Transmission Planning and Interconnection
- 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.
Daniel Churney
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.
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 Nolen
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.