Lights On

Gridforce Energy Management, LLC was founded in 1999 in Houston, Texas. Gridforce provides world class energy services to cities, municipalities, electric cooperatives, generation owners, independent power producers, renewable power owners, transmission and distribution owners, and commercial and industrial facilities throughout the North American continent. As the nation’s most advanced energy control center, Gridforce has successfully certified over 40 balancing authorities, has managed full requirements service for 5 municipal utilities, and provides services to over 13,000 MW of generation and transmission facilities in 6 NERC -regions. Gridforce system operators have deep multi-regional experience and are NERC Reliability Coordinator and PJM Generation and Transmission certified.

The Gridforce Leadership Team

CJ Ingersoll

President

CJ

CJ Ingersoll graduated from the University of Houston Law Center in 1999 and is a Licensed Attorney in the State of Texas. She started her legal career as a solo practitioner prior to shifting to a career in the energy sector as a System Operator at Duke Energy North America in 2001.

She transitioned from real-time system operations to compliance program development and management on behalf of clients while engaging in strategic business development activities. CJ eventually moved to a new role serving as Associate Generation Counsel where she gained experience in corporate governance and regulatory requirements.

Since 2015, CJ has been the leader of the Gridforce team growing its existing core transmission and balancing authority services, and expanding generation control, microgrid, and cyber security service lines.

Denise Ayers

Vice President

Denise

Denise holds a BS in Business Management and an MBA in Public Administration with over 30 years’ experience in power plant operations, utility system operations and management.

Denise is SERC certified in ADDIE/SAT training principles and has also achieved NERC Reliability Coordinator operator certification, ERCOT operator certification, WECC operator certification, and PJM Generation and Transmission certifications.

Denise manages day-to-day activity within Gridforce and is responsible for business operations and coordination of technical staff to support operations and projects.


Tope Usanga

Control Center Systems Engineering Manager

Tope

Tope manages the team that supports the software that make up the Control Center Systems. This includes, but is not limited to, the EMS System and the Energy Accounting software.

Tope has a BS in Computer Science and an MS in Software Engineering. He has over 19 years of software development, engineering, and support; ten of those years have come with Energy Management Systems. He has experience in multiple regions and markets across the United States of America.

He has extensive experience supporting multiple brands of EMS performing multiple functions including Generation, Transmission, Balancing Authority, and Remote Operations.

Tope has also been actively involved in multiple NERC CIP programs and is very familiar with the requirements and the tools needed to successfully defend in an audit.