Alumni Profile - Tahrieq Koonce '17

TAHRIEQ KOONCE ’17

Tahrieq Koonce was captain of Millbrook’s inaugural 8-man football team, a School Year Abroad scholar in Beijing, China, an ardent student in Advanced Honors Biology, and a member of SCAPE (Students Concerned About Planet Earth) and zoo squad. It was no surprise when we caught up with him in March that he has continued to pursue his passions in college while completing a rigorous course of study.

Tahrieq matriculated to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, where he earned a spot as an inside linebacker on their football team his freshman year. He dove into academics and joined a fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, and by his sophomore year he was voted president of their chapter and began managing activities across four different colleges and universities in the city. Currently finishing his junior year, he is double-majoring in aerospace engineering and international studies with a concentration in global environment and China, which demands study abroad. Tahrieq’s travel abroad plans will likely have to wait until the summer of 2021 since in addition to his full-time studies, he is also in an ongoing internship with Dominion Energy, a large local utility that provides natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, and wind energy to consumers across 18 states.

Joining Dominion Energy Ohio as a Commercial Operations intern in the summer of 2019, Tahrieq learned about both the technical and business sides of the company through broad experience on construction sites, reading gas meters, and shadowing engineers to gain insight into their projects and the thought behind their design. In September he joined the Commercial Gas Services Department to work with the manager of Dominion’s renewable natural gas ventures for the state of Ohio.

“We deal with renewable natural gas like landfill gas, dairy/cattle/hog manure, waste water treatment—all these things create methane. When captured, methane can be broken down and placed into the gas infrastructure. California is offering a high energy credit towards renewable natural gas, so a lot of states, like Ohio, are “sending gas molecules” to California.”

With a sustainable mindset that was cemented at Millbrook, Tahrieq considered that his work with Dominion and their natural gas initiatives would allow him to help change things from the inside out.

“I couldn’t work for a company that was not socially responsible. Dominion Energy is most definitely moving in the right direction and is currently the country’s leading utility in renewable energy. The company has set a goal to go completely carbon-neutral by 2050 – that is a BIG step. We just started a $500 million dual venture with Smithfield to understand and get the renewable natural gas processes down to a science. We have the 3rd largest solar fleet in the world, and we are the leader in wind energy. Dominion will be building a wind farm 30 miles east off the coast of Virginia Beach that will power 3,000 homes with 3,000 megawatts of solar and wind power. It is the second offshore wind project in the nation and the first owned by an electric utility company.”

Currently Tahrieq is involved in project management and engineering analysis as a liaison between Dominion Energy Ohio and their engineers, helping to create the business models, confirm that projects are technically feasible, and then create flow charts to bring on new ventures. “I love what I am doing in this internship. I take the technical jargon and put it into laymen’s terms for the business people. It’s the perfect marriage of my two majors.”

What’s next for Tahrieq? This summer he’ll be working for Dominion Energy in Richmond, VA, with their Electrical Transmission Group in the Corporate Aviation department. To build on their core values of “embracing change” and “innovation,” Dominion launched a drone program in 2014 to inspect the tens of thousands of miles of electric lines that would otherwise be inspected manually or by helicopter. Equipped with high-tech cameras that take HD photos and videos, the drones have autonomous routes or way points that they follow and AI software that allows them to find defects in the wires. Plotting those defects on a map, the tech crew knows exactly where on the electric line repairs need to be made. Tahrieq will be working with the drones, helping to manage FAA compliance while also going out in the field and flying them. In order to do so, he will have to become an FAA certified drone pilot, and later this spring, he’ll be taking the test for that license.

Tahrieq suggests that there is no better time to become part of a company like Dominion, as they work to shift their culture and hire people who will bring innovation and embrace change. Certainly, Dominon’s managers saw these qualities in Tahrieq, and we know that as a creative leader with an open mind, he will surely continue to make great changes from within.