Mr. Richard D. Housh, Chairman, Founder & CEO
Mr. Housh is Plug Smart’s Chairman of the Board, CEO and co-founder. Mr. Housh has successfully started, managed and sold numerous businesses over the past 35 years. These businesses were engaged in energy services, environmental management, security software, and monitoring and control technology and services. In developing these enterprises, Mr. Housh utilized a potent combination of entrepreneurism, traditional management discipline and high impact national alliances and sales programs to achieve extraordinary results.
In 2001, Mr. Housh sold Control Solutions, a company he founded and grew into a national $75 million in revenues business, to TAC/Schneider Electric, an $18 billion French company. Prior to selling Control Solutions to TAC/Schneider, in 1998 Mr. Housh sold fifty percent of the same business to DQE, Inc., a NYSE-listed energy utility. Between 1998 and 2001, Mr. Housh led, through the vehicle of Control Solutions, important elements of DQE’s national expansion in energy management and services. In 2001, Mr. Housh and his management team repurchased the fifty percent interest owned by DQE, thereafter further expanding and strengthening the business, culminating in the sale of Control Solutions to TAC/Schneider in 2001.
Mr. Housh serves on numerous business and non-profit boards, including the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, the Southwest Florida Land Preservation Trust and the Rails to Trails Conservancy. After attending the United States Naval Academy, Mr. Housh completed his B.S. in Education from the Miami University in Oxford, OH.
Mr. Thomas A. Hurkmans, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Hurkmans is Plug Smart’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, a member of its Board of Directors and a co-founder. Mr. Hurkmans is an accomplished entrepreneur, with an extensive record of creating, building and managing multimillion-dollar enterprises in the energy services, communications, software and electronic commerce industries. Mr. Hurkmans orchestrated the creation of over $400 million of value as President and CEO of DQE Enterprises, the leading technology and business developer focused on the utility industry. While with DQE, Mr. Hurkmans built 26 businesses, completed over 50 financings, including three Initial Public Offerings and 12 company spin offs.
In 2000 Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley designated DQE Enterprises as the most successful developer of technology businesses addressing the utility industry. Between 1985 and 1990, Mr. Hurkmans started and was CEO of Organization Technologies Group, a software company that eventually captured a 25% US market share for software addressing the needs of newsletters.
Since 2002, Mr. Hurkmans has been a private investor, focused primarily on technology and energy businesses, and has been an interim CFO at Citynet LLC, a facilities based fiber optic communications provider, and a corporate development executive at ATS/Chester Engineers, a leading national water and wastewater engineering company, whose considerable growth in recent years can be attributed meaningfully to Mr. Hurkmans’ acquisition and financing leadership.
Between 1986 and 1989 Mr. Hurkmans was an investment banker with Merrill Lynch Capital Markets in New York, NY, where he focused on raising funds for, and providing strategic advisory services to, energy, communications and utility companies. Mr. Hurkmans has served on several public company and non-profit Boards of Directors. Mr. Hurkmans received a B.A., in Economics from Bates College in Lewiston, ME, (Valedictorian, Summa Cum Laude) and undertook additional studies at the London School of Economics.
Mr. David B. Zehala, Executive Vice President, Energy Services Group
Mr. Zehala is Plug Smart’s Executive Vice President of .the Energy Services Group Mr. Zehala brings more than 22 years of general management, marketing, sales and operations experience to this role. Most recently, Mr. Zehala managed a business portfolio of early stage startup companies that provided business consulting services for entrepreneurs and business professionals.
Prior to 2004, Mr. Zehala served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Allegro Development, an energy management and technology company that helps corporations manage the production, purchase, transport, sale and consumption of natural gas, electric power, crude oil, natural gas liquids, refined products and coal. In this role, Mr. Zehala was responsible for leading the company’s worldwide sales and marketing efforts including new business development, customer relationship management, marketing communications, and business alliances.
Prior to 1999, Mr. Zehala served as a Manager with the Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group, one of the nation’s leading consulting firms for business strategy, operations, technology and process improvement. In this role, Mr. Zehala was responsible for helping electric utility companies and other clients implement mission-critical software applications allowing them to increase their operational efficiencies, improve their relationships with customers, and leverage information across the client’s supply chain.
Prior to 1996, Mr Zehala served as a Director of Strategic Accounts, for Schlumberger Technologies, a leading manufacturer of automatic test equipment (ATE) for the global semiconductor industry specializing in analog, digital, memory, mixed-signal and wireless semiconductor devices. In this role, Mr. Zehala was responsible for leading the worldwide sales and marketing efforts associated with Schlumberger’s most strategic accounts.
Mr. Zehala is a Certified Energy Manager and earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from The Ohio State University, and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin.