Mr. Rickard has extensive experience in twenty-four countries on six continents and more than eighty geothermal fields worldwide. He has been involved in the geothermal industry for over 41 years. He specializes in project management, drilling management, rig supervision, troubleshooting, well workovers, and problem well diagnosis. He has an established record of reducing costs through innovative engineering, and successfully managing geothermal exploration and drilling programs. “We have significantly reduced drilling risk in the last decade through exhaustive engineering planning prior to the start of drilling.” His experience, working as a drilling engineer in the U.S. and overseas, has given him the ability to communicate well with both project management and well site personnel. He has also used his knowledge to develop and teach geothermal drilling technology courses and conduct geothermal research and development efforts. Prior to starting his own company, Mr. Rickard worked 14 years for Union Oil Co and Unocal Geothermal where he started as a field engineer and then became district drilling manager and division drilling training coordinator. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Petroleum Engineering from Montana Tech and has published many technical papers. Mr. Rickard is a registered Professional Engineer and has served on the Geothermal Resources Council (GRC) Board of Directors, the Geothermal Energy Association Board of Directors and the GRC Policy Committee Executive Board. He is also a member of the American Association of Drilling Engineers and the Society of Petroleum Engineers and has received the GRC 2020 Pioneer Award

Sam Abraham has over 27 years of experience in the drilling industry, exploration and production wells in Indonesia (offshore and onshore), geothermal in New Zealand, Turkey, California, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Hawaii, the Caribbean Islands, Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Tanzania.) He has worked at many locations throughout the world in drilling both exploration and production wells in challenging environments such as shallow high-pressure wells, underbalanced drilling, deep directional high-pressure high-temperature wells, especially on remote drilling and start up projects, with ability to prioritize under pressure and problem-solving difficult situations using an analytical approach. He has in-depth understanding of the well design, preparing drilling programs and well cost estimates, HSE policy implementation, preparation of RFQ’s, contracting and tender evaluation, permitting and logistics, drill well on paper exercises, end of well reporting, lessons learned, and cost analysis is outstanding. The understanding of the safety practices and governmental regulations pertaining to drilling and working as the project coordinator on site during the drilling project has solidified his ability to be a valuable team leader. Sam performed a drilling assessment review for the geothermal drilling project in Kenya and was the drilling instructor for the drilling engineering training module with USAID/EAGP training program. He has been on the expert’s panel for the US Department of State workshop, April 2014, on how to drill wells more cost effectively and assisted the World Bank for preparing framework for drilling rules and regulations for East Africa (May 2014), which he presented as the African Union Code of Geothermal Drilling Practices at the African Union meeting on June 13, 2016 in Addis Ababa, and later led the AU-BGR team in implementation workshop of the code in Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.

Richard Holt is a consulting geothermal reservoir engineering with over 25 years full-time in the geothermal industry. Richard’s educational background includes a MS degree from Stanford University and a BS degree from University of California Berkeley, both in Petroleum Engineering. Richard has provided consulting services on over 100 different geothermal fields in 20 countries, including all producing geothermal projects in the USA. Richard has worked directly with all types of resources found in the global geothermal industry, from low-enthalpy pumped hydrothermal wells in sedimentary rocks, to super-critical hypersaline high-enthalpy wells in fractured volcanics. Richard’s areas of expertise are numerical simulation of geothermal resources, geothermal resource assessment, and the design, implementation, and analysis of well tests. He has been a key advisor in the development of numerous green-field geothermal field developments and geothermal field expansion projects.

Mary Mann is a Professional Geologist specializing in geothermal energy. She has experience in all stages of geothermal energy development, from greenfield exploration program design and field work, thermal gradient, slim well, and production/injection well drilling, targeting, well site geology, and drilling project planning. Prior to GRG, she was the Resource Manager for a geothermal operating company playing a key role in exploration program planning, conceptual model building, well targeting, resource monitoring and compliance, and drilling project management. Before that, she gained experience with collection and interpretation of geophysical data including EM and potential fields data while working for a geophysical consulting firm. Mary is a graduate of University of Nevada, Reno, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology. She has a background in hydrology, including research as a Fulbright Scholar studying water quality and domestic water well siting to benefit rural populations in Niger.

Ernesto Rivas is a fluently bilingual (Spanish/English) industrial engineer with extensive geothermal drilling engineering background. He has been with GRG since 2019. Ernesto is primarily responsible for designing and engineering of geothermal wells, formulating detailed drilling and workover plans, and providing on-site supervision of domestic and multinational rotary drilling, core drilling, testing, and workover operations. Ernesto also develops and manages drilling services and equipment procurement and inventory for domestic and multinational operations. He conducts an analysis of drilling data for establishing efficient drilling practices. He has worked on various projects throughout Latin America, Philippines, Indonesia, New Zealand and Turkey