Director, Project Controls

Sudie Bhat

Sudie (Sudarshan) heads the Project Controls team, overseeing the development of cost estimates, planning & scheduling, budgeting & cost control, and project risk management. His team collaborates closely with project delivery and development teams to ensure setup of project controls for ongoing and upcoming projects. 

With nearly two decades of experience in capital project management, Sudie has worked extensively in project controls across a wide spectrum of energy projects, including oil and gas production, refineries, solar, and wind farms. He brings expertise in developing project controls strategies, large scale implementation of tools, building teams, and establishing competency development plans for the function. Recently, Sudie pioneered the establishment of the project controls function for Shell’s onshore renewable group from scratch. His deep expertise is in innovative application of probabilistic quantitative risk analysis techniques for better decision making.   

Educationally, Sudie holds a B.E. degree in Electrical Engineering and an MBA with concentration in Operations Management. Outside of work, Sudie enjoys traveling and spending quality time with his family. His recent passion is endurance biking, and he aspires to revive his former hobby of theater acting sometime soon. 

Director, Treasury

Opal Desaire

As Urban Grid’s Director of Treasury, Opal leads the Treasury and Accounts Payable Departments and is responsible for liquidity, payment strategy, bank account optimization, and debt management. Opal has 20+ years of Treasury experience across several industries including solar, insurance, and finance. 

A Certified Treasury Professional, Opal holds a Master’s in Organizational Leadership from the University of Denver, and a BA in Business Administration from Fort Lewis College located in beautiful Durango, Colorado. Outside of work, Opal enjoys yoga and spending time with her sisters, family, and friends. She looks forward to more adventures traveling the globe with her husband. 

Vice President, Asset Management

Jeff Hudson

Jeff oversees operations and maintenance activities, leading the team who ensures our projects are run safely and reliably while increasing their performance and profitability. In addition, Jeff’s team is responsible for project compliance, contract oversight and the agrivoltaics program.
Previously at Urban Grid, Jeff was the Director of Interconnection where he established the transmission, interconnection and innovation teams and oversaw strategy development for Urban Grid’s 15 GW solar PV pipeline. Prior to Urban Grid, Jeff worked in the interconnection and renewables operations departments at Duke Energy where he led process improvement projects and managed the CPRE projects in the DEC territory. In Duke’s renewables operations team, he performed analysis and modeling of development and operational wind and solar projects.
Jeff holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University as well as an MBA from NC State University.

Vice President, Human Resources

Bianca Krukiel

Bianca brings extensive HR expertise to Urban Grid and focuses on accelerating team-focused priorities such as career coaching, training and leadership development.
Bianca’s background spans all aspects of HR working for large corporations with over 2800+ employees, where she supported leadership with compensation planning, workforce development and organizational alignment for growth. Most recently she worked for Battalion Oil Corporation, a small independent oil and gas company, where she was HR Director.

Vice President, Economic & Community Development

Val Newcomb

Val leads the team focused on local engagement, coalition building, corporate giving and local government affairs, while creating and delivering project campaign strategy and messaging throughout the lifecycle of our projects. 

She previously led Marketing and Communications for the company, leveraging her 20-year background activating marketing programs for top brands and global non-profits in the public education space. Her passion for startups and doing good work for good causes led her to renewables in 2016, heading up marketing for solar IPP Coronal-Panasonic. Before Urban Grid, Val spent two years as part of the launch team at Lumin, an energy management venture, as VP of Marketing and communications. 

In addition to holding a BA in Communications from Pennsylvania State University, Val is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Strategic Communications at Penn State. Gardening, canning and cooking consume her spare time in the (seasonally) empty nest she shares with her husband and two Yorkies in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

Senior Director, Land Acquisition

Stewart West

Stewart is responsible for co-leading the Acquisition team in the identification and acquisition of greenfield projects while also supporting the supplemental land team. His expertise in mineral ownership has helped identify and cure risk across the UG projects.
Prior to joining Urban Grid, Stewart’s worked in land acquisition in the mid-stream and upstream energy sectors for more than a decade with a primary focus on mineral leases, right-of-way, and surface use agreements to support operations.
Stewart holds a BA in Political Science from Allegheny College, as well as a Masters in Energy and Natural Resource Law from the University of Oklahoma, College of Law. Stewart is also a Certified Professional Landman through the American Association of Professional Landmen.
Outside of work, Stewart enjoys the great outdoors and building new memories with his wife and two kids.