Manager of Beckwith Systems Engineering (BSE)
Beckwith Electric

Thomas L. Branch has been with Beckwith Electric Company since 1985. Tom Started his career as a design Engineer in the R&D department working on the design of an advanced capacitor control (M-0318). He was also a part of the team that developed Digital Multifunction Relay M-0420 for the interconnection of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) – a first in the USA in 1990. He was also instrumental in the design of Digital Tapchanger control (M-2001) and adapter panels. He was responsible for supporting all Beckwith Electric products including controls for transformers, voltage regulators and capacitor banks as well as protective relays and generator synchronizing systems. He then moved to Beckwith Systems Engineering (BSE) group where he is presently the manager. He directs projects related to transformer paralleling, generator synchronizing and motor bus transfer. He and his team designed and commissioned several hundred transformer paralleling schemes (up to 7 transformers) and motor bus transfer systems around the world.

Prior to joining to Beckwith Electric Tom worked at Paradyne Corporation (now AT&T) in Largo, FL on the design of communications equipment.

Tom has B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of South Florida in Tampa. He is a Life Member of the IEEE and a member of the Power and Energy Society.

Business Development Manager
Beckwith Electric

Mat Garver is the Manager of Beckwith Electric’s Business Development department. Mat is responsible for helping find and develop solutions for the challenges and problems electric utilities face in the ever-changing electric utility sector. Before stepping into his present role at Beckwith, he was a Senior Application Engineer at Beckwith, responsible for: integration, implementation, prototype development, product design, and customer technical support at Beckwith Electric. Prior to employment at Beckwith, Mat was a Senior Protection Engineer at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in its System Protection and Analysis department

Mat is an active participant in the Electric Power industry. He has authored multiple technical papers, one of which is cited as a reference in the IEEE C37.230 Guide for Protective Relay Applications to Distribution Lines. Mat is a member of the IEEE Power and Energy Society and serves as Vice Chair of three Power System Relaying and Control Committee (PSRC) working groups as well as being an active contributing member of several other PSRC working groups. Mat received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Tennessee Technological University in May 2011.

Regional Sales & Application Manager
Northeast U.S.
Beckwith Electric

Mr. Robert (Bob) McFetridge is the Regional Sales & Application Manager for Beckwith Electric. His main responsibilities include product strategy, development, and launches, as well as promoting Beckwith Electric and its operating divisions worldwide.

Mr. McFetridge is a seasoned electrical utility industry veteran with over 30 years experience. Mr. McFetridge spent the first 7 years of his career as an application engineer with two different power companies, Virginia Power Company and Georgia Power Company, where his primary focus with both companies was in the areas of substation SCADA, distribution automation, and distribution protection. He spent the last 14 years of his career working for various vendors such as Tasnet, Siemens PTD, Schneider Electric/Modicon, and Alstom/Areva T&D. During this time, his specialization was in the areas of automation, protection and control. He started his career with vendors as a project manager and has also been a field engineer, head of training and customer support, product testing and overseeing new product design.

Mr. McFetridge has installed SCADA/Automation systems for utilities that include Virginia Power, Georgia Power, Progress Energy, Portland General Electric, Southern California Edison, Commonwealth Edison and NYSEG. During his career, Mr. McFetridge has programmed PLCs from Modicon, GE, PLC Direct and Allen-Bradley, created Human-Machine Interfaces with Wonderware, US Data Factory Link and Intellutions, and has worked with SCADA packages from OSI Monarch Lite and Areva T&D EterraControl. He has commissioned protective relays from SEL, Areva T&D and ABB including Line Differential Relays, Distance Relays, Transformer Differential relays and Feeder Management Relays. He has also integrated over 50 different IEDs into Tasnet systems, Modicon PLCs, ACS NTUs and QEI RTUs.

Mr. McFetridge has presented papers on substation automation at conferences such as Texas A&M and the Marquette University Substation Automation Seminars. Mr. McFetridge received a BSEE from West Virginia University.

Sr. Product Manager – Protection
Beckwith Electric

Dhruv Patel is the Senior Product Manager for the Protection & Control Relays within Hubbell’s Beckwith Electric brand. Dhruv is responsible for product development, product lifecycle, analyzing market needs, and defining a commercially successful product roadmap that addresses the needs of the grid in future. Before his present role, Dhruv was a Product Specialist at ABB for outdoor distribution apparatus and an Application Engineer at GE Multilin for new product development of their protection relays. Dhruv has 12+ years of experience in the industrial and utility segments with focus on protection, control, and automation and various roles including relay testing, automation, product support, application engineering, product development, and technical regional sales.

Dhruv is a licensed professional engineer for the Province of Ontario in Canada and continues to be an active member of the IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) and IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES). He is also a member of the Power System Relaying and Control Committee (PSRC) which is responsible for standards development for the electric utilities.

Dhruv received his Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc) in Electrical Engineering from University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada in 2012 and Master of Engineering (MEng) in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC in 2015.

Doug Weisz joined Beckwith in 2017 as a Principal Generation Protection Application Engineer.

His responsibilities include working with customers to help solve generator, transformer, power plant, and protection settings application and design questions and to assist in troubleshooting and post event analysis from trip events at power plants.

His previous work experience includes 30 years as a Relay Engineer for Wisconsin Public Service in Green Bay, WI. This experience included protective relaying scheme design work for Generators, Power Plants, Substations, Transmission, and Distribution. Responsibilities included relay calculations and settings development, fault study modelling and calculations, 1-lines, 3-lines, and schematics development, NERC PRC standards compliance evaluations, and commissioning assistance.

Doug received a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota in 1987. He currently holds a Professional Engineer License from the State of Wisconsin.

COO
Qualus Power Services

Michael Wright is a co-founder and former President of Power Grid Engineering, with over 20 years of experience in the utility industry, focusing on operations management and leadership. Wright has been responsible for major milestones that grew the company to over 400 employees with five offices. Prior to founding PGE, Wright served as an Adjunct Professor at Valencia College while working at Progress Energy. He held positions in Engineering, Relay Construction and Protection and Control. Wright earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Florida and a Master of Business Administration from Rollins College.

Currently, Wright functions as COO of Qualus Power Services and oversees Engineering, Field Services in the utility and CIGG (Commercial, Industrial, Government, Generation) sectors, as well as Project Management. Wright also serves on the External Advisory Board for the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Florida and is a registered Professional Engineer in 21 states.

Vice President – General Manager
Beckwith Electric
IEEE Fellow

Dr. Murty V.V.S. Yalla has been with Beckwith Electric since 1989 and presently holds the position of Vice President – General Manager.

Dr. Yalla earned a diploma in electrical engineering from Andhra Polytechnic in 1976; a Bachelor of Technology in electrical engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in 1981; a Master of Technology in electrical engineering from IIT, Kanpur in 1983 (all located in India); and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from University of New Brunswick, Canada in 1987.

From 1988 to 1989, Dr. Yalla taught and conducted research on digital power system protection at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada. After joining Beckwith Electric in 1989, Dr. Yalla held various leadership roles, including company president from 2005 through December 2020.

Dr. Yalla is the chairman (2015-2024) of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC, Geneva, Switzerland) technical committee (TC95), measuring relays and protection equipment. He leads subject matter experts from 34 countries in the development of international standards in power system protection and control.

Dr. Yalla is also the chairman of the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES), Power System Relaying and Control (PSRC) committee from 2021 to 2022 where IEEE standards, guides and reports related to power system protection are developed.

He served as a U.S. delegate to the international council on large electric systems (CIGRE, France), working groups on protection of generators and power transformers. He was a member of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) System Protection and Control Subcommittee (SPCS). Presently he is a member of the Industry Technical Support Leadership Committee (ITSLC) of the IEEE PES, serving as a liaison between IEEE PES and NERC. He also serves on the planning committee of the Georgia Tech protective relaying conference.

Dr. Yalla was the chairman of the working group that developed IEEE Standard C37.102-2006 “Guide for AC Generator Protection.” He co-authored an IEEE PES tutorial on the “Protection of Synchronous Generators.” He was the organizer of the IEEE PES GM Tutorial on Distribution Volt VAr Control and Optimization in 2015, 2016 and 2018, as well as the IEEE PES GM Tutorial on Cybersecurity of the Electric Power Transmission and Distribution Systems in 2017, 2019 and 2020.

Dr. Yalla has published several research papers in IEEE Journals and various conferences. He holds six U.S. patents in power system protection and control. He was elevated to the IEEE Fellow grade in 2006 “for contributions in computer relays for power systems.” He also received various other awards including the IEEE Florida Council Outstanding Engineer Award in 2005 and 2018, the IEC 1906 Award in 2010, and the Indo-U.S. Chamber of Commerce Businessman of the Year Award in 2013.

In 2021, Dr. Yalla was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) “for contributions to digital protection and control devices for the grid.” The NAE, established in 1964, is a private, independent, nonprofit institution that provides engineering leadership in service to the nation. Its mission is to advance the well-being of the nation by promoting a vibrant engineering profession and by marshalling the expertise and insights of eminent engineers to provide independent advice to the federal government on matters involving engineering and technology.