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Michael Kotara

Michael Kotara

Power Market Executive, Zachry Group

Michael (Mike) Kotara is the Power Market Executive at Zachry Group. In this role, Mike leads Zachry’s efforts in the Power industry and related market segments including Carbon Capture,Nuclear SMRs and Data Centers.

Mike joined Zachry Group in 2012 as Vice President, Power where he led the business development team in acquisition of engineering, construction, and maintenance services within the power industry. In 2018, Mike became the President of Zachry Engineering Corporation leading a team of more than 1,000 staff across twelve offices in the U.S. and Philippines. From 2021 to 2024, Mike served as President of Zachry Sustainability Solutions (ZSS) where he led a project and business development team focused on energy transition technologies including Hydrogen/Ammonia, Carbon Capture,Renewable Fuels, Nuclear SMRs and Electrification before transitioning to his current role in 2025.

Before joining Zachry Group, Mike retired from CPS Energy as Senior Vice President of power generation where he led a team of more than 500 employees engaged in engineering, operations and maintenance of 4,800 MW of natural gas-fired and coal-fired power plants, and he oversaw CPS Energy’s partial ownership of South Texas Project nuclear power plant. During his 27-year career at CPS Energy, Mike held leadership roles for the gas utility, wholesale energy market operations and power generation. He represented CPS Energy on ERCOT’s inaugural Wholesale Market Subcommittee. Mike also served as a senior member of CPS Energy’s Strategy Development Team,labor relations team and the investment committee for CPS Energy’s employee benefit trust funds.

Sessions

21-Jan-2026

01:00 PM – 02:00 PM

Exhibit Hall - Hall 1

Bottlenecks & Breakthroughs: Getting Power Projects Built

"This is my first year at POWERGEN and so far I can just say, wow, this event is huge. I never thought I would have access to so many different vendors and so many different experts in the energy industry by coming to an event like this."

Caitlyn Watkins

Cleco

"It's my first time at POWERGEN. I'm having a great time walking around and seeing all of the booths in the exhibit hall and everything that everybody's trying to sell me, as well as a lot of very useful technical presentations. My particular favorite has been the carbon capture track, but they've all been good that I've attended so far."

Janelle Dana

Entergy

"Hi, I’m Chad Lemoine with Entergy... here as a corrective actions program specialist. It’s my first time at POWERGEN, so it’s been great for networking. I’ve met personnel at our plants I’d only talked to on the phone, so that face-to-face interaction has been really good. I’ve enjoyed meeting new people, learning about what they do, and how it interacts with my work... Overall, it's been a really good time."

Chad Lemoine

Entergy

"I think my favorite part of the conference has been essentially the Smarter Power Plant Track. There's been a lot of good [takeaways] for us because our plans are quite old, so there's a lot of manual readings and things, but me being the IT generation, I think it could be done better. So having a lot of these [takeaways] from companies who have [accomplished what] we are wanting to do is great. It's been really eye opening networking with all of the exhibitors [as well]. It's my first time here, but I don’t think it's going to be my last."

Jonathan Hellborg

Svensk Kraftreserv

“Nel’s chosen to sponsor and be part of POWERGEN because it's one of the more important shows in the hydrogen market, also the power generation market in general. Over the years, we've seen a shift in POWERGEN from more traditional power generation to a greater presence with renewables, and now with hydrogen, as an energy source, moving into the future.”

Chris Van Name

Nel Hydrogen

“We're here today at the conference because I believe this is the largest power generation conference there is in the country. One, it's a way to get our name out and that's why we're sponsoring it. But two, it's also a great way to connect with other groups, other organizations and, you know, meet the people who are actually important for our own progression as a company.”

James Walker

Nano Nuclear Energy, Inc

“We come to POWERGEN every year because it's a great show you can make great contacts in the renewable space, great contacts in the data center space, great contacts in the commercial industrial space. So that's why we're here every year. You should be here too.”

David D’Escoto

Maddox Industrial Transformer