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GE Renewable Energy: Teaching Future Generations About Hydropower
Matt Pevarnik speaks via Zoom during the opening presentation of the class.
G
eneral Electric (GE) is one of the largest corporations in the United States, with business lines ranging from power to aviation to healthcare. One of its business lines, GE Renewable Energy, is involved in a push to achieve a carbon-free grid by 2050. Some of GE Renewable Energy’s Denver-based employees have recently begun a school outreach program to educate young people about this important goal. In this interview, GE Renewable Energy Senior Sales Leader Matt Pevarnik tells us about the program he and his colleagues led at a Denver-area high school called STEM School Highlands Ranch and informs us about another outreach initiative, the Northwest Hydroelectric Association’s (NWHA) Ambassadors Program. Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
32 | HYDRO LEADER | September 2021
Matt Pevarnik: The North America GE hydro leader encourages us to reach out and advocate in schools, and we did a program about 2 years ago at a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) school in North Carolina. However, the Highlands Ranch opportunity developed after we canceled our 2020 Christmas party due to COVID‑19 and decided to use the money to make a donation to some charities in Denver. The office that I work out of voted to donate to the Denver Rescue Mission, a nonprofit that supports the homeless, and to the Denverarea STEM School Highlands Ranch. We called STEM School to talk about how to make a direct deposit and then talked to the director about industry outreach. We explained how GE would like to get engaged and talk about the energy transition and hydro generation. After the director agreed, our team started a series of meetings with the team at Highlands Ranch. We spent about 5 weeks putting the curriculum together. By the end of February, we had put together a program for the 12th grade Advanced Placement environmental sciences group. We decided to focus on GE’s energy transitions initiative, which deals with how to get to a carbon-free grid. The GE hydro group and GE’s gas, hybrid, nuclear, and wind business units all put together presentations for the 6‑week course. We had a Zoom call with the students hydroleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF GE RENEWABLE ENERGY.
Matt Pevarnik: I’ve been in the power industry for 36 years. I started in the fossil business after graduating from West Virginia University with a degree in civil engineering. I moved to Colorado 20 years ago to run the Alstom Power fossil power service division. After 10 years of running this division, I joined the Alstom global power sales organization, focusing on the entire power portfolio: coal, gas, oil, hydro, wind, solar thermal, and nuclear. Then, in 2015, I joined Alstom’s North America hydro division as a senior sales leader. The same year, GE acquired Alstom Power. In my current role for GE Hydro, I focus on customer development, opportunity lead, and strategic market analysis.
Hydro Leader: Please tell us about the Highlands Ranch school program.
