Our Team

Mike Sloan

Mike started his career as a clean energy “pioneer” long before utility-scale wind or solar had come to Texas, assisting some of the world’s largest renewable energy development companies with prospective projects in the Western U.S., Hawaii, Europe and Africa. As a relentless advocate serving in various volunteer capacities focused on energy and economic development for Texas Governors Richards, Bush and Perry, Mike achieved national recognition for his leadership roles in the development of Texas’ highly-acclaimed “energy policy” for renewable energy development and later for proactive electric transmission (the $7 billion CREZ transmission plan which enabled $40 billion in new wind and solar). During his tenure managing The Wind Coalition trade association, Texas became America’s #1 wind power state (wind capacity increased 200-fold) and regarded as a “best practices” policy model for the nation. Since 2015, Mike primarily has worked with solar, storage and infrastructure development in North America, the Caribbean and Africa. Mike is an advocate for foster kids, a lousy fisherman, and still a pioneer – living in an 1850’s frontier house outside San Antonio, built by a Tejano soldier who had fought at the Alamo to help earn Texas’ freedom.

Mike has Mechanical Engineering degrees from Notre Dame and UT Austin and served on the Texas Energy Coordination Council by appointment of Gov. George W. Bush.

Ward Marshall

Ward is Synergetic’s Chief Development Officer. When Ward joined the power industry in 1991, there were less than 10 wind farms in the entire United States and the levelized cost of wind power was over $0.35/kWh. During Ward’s nearly four decades of project development experience, he has had leadership involvement in the development or acquisition of over seven gigawatts of wind, 800 megawatts of solar, 200 megawatts of gas, and five gigawatts of transmission (the majority of which was high-voltage direct current). Like all of the top project developers and true to his engineering background, Ward enjoys solving a project’s problems. But what makes Ward best-in-class is that he is an authentic people person who enjoys engaging with stakeholders and solving their problems as well. Ward’s deep experience includes regional sales management for GE Energy, wind project development management at Babcock and Brown, and over a decade of project origination and development leadership at Pattern Energy. A respected statesman and a dedicated servant to the renewable industry, Ward has served as President of both the American Wind Energy Association and the Texas Wind Coalition.

Ward holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin.

Katherine McKee

Kat began working with Synergetic as a research intern through Solar Austin’s Pathways to Clean Energy Careers program and quickly transformed her role as a consultant for governmental affairs and customer relations. She is a native Houstonian and first-generation Texan with South African roots. Growing up between two energy-intensive cities on opposite sides of the world, Kat became passionate about resource conservation and redressing social inequalities which arise from these scarcities. Beginning her academic career at a local community college, Kat has a decade of experience in the service industry during which time she obtained an A.S. in Business Administration, a B.A. in International Relations, and an M.A. in International Studies with honors from Texas State University. With a particular focus in Latin America, Kat studied in Costa Rica and the Universidad de las Américas in Ecuador exploring historical patterns of economic growth across the Americas and their impacts on societal and international relations.

Kat loves traveling and connecting with people, and enjoys working toward facilitating a healthier, more equitable world both environmentally and socially.

Alysa Suydam

Alysa is a licensed professional geologist (TX-15118) and native Austinite. After the 2011 drought in Texas, Alysa became acutely interested in hydrogeology. Since 2016, she has been mapping brackish groundwater. In her previous role at the Texas Water Development Board, Alysa worked on one of the few teams in the nation focused solely on characterizing brackish groundwater resources. As existing water supplies become stressed by climate change and use, utilizing brackish groundwater in addition to freshwater could make water supplies more robust. Alysa investigates groundwater resources with fundamental knowledge of geology, strong skills in research, experience interpreting geophysical well logs, and with various data analysis skills including database, coding, and spatial analysis skills. Alysa’s publications and conference presentations may be found on her LinkedIn and ResearchGate pages. In her free time, she enjoys volunteering with Austin Animal Center walking dogs.

Alysa graduated from Texas A&M University – College Station in 2015 with a B.S. in Geology and a minor in Geoinformatics. In 2022, she graduated from the Jackson School of Geology at the University of Texas at Austin with an M.S. in Energy and Earth Resources. Her thesis, which was supervised by Dr. Bridget Scanlon, made stochastic estimates of groundwater storage volumes and salinity and examined how uncertainty affected the cost of a desalination project in the State Water Plan.

Andrew McCalla

Is Synergetic’s VP of Special Projects. A seventh-generation Texan, Andrew grew up inspired by the independence and promise of distributed renewable generation, and entered the energy industry in 1995, joining Houston area-based solar-electric design and distribution company Southwest PV Systems (now Ameresco), to lead that company’s international sales and design effort. After 4 formative years in that role, implementing battery-based systems worldwide, Andrew returned to his home town of Austin to found Meridian Energy Systems (later to become Meridian Solar), to provide battery-based and grid-tied renewable energy system design and installation services to the Texas market.

Andrew led Meridian through its 22-year evolution from a two-man shop helping to build the nascent solar industry, to one of the leading firms providing consultation, design, engineering, and construction services to residential, agricultural, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale projects. Ultimately, Meridian completed approximately 600 projects, representing roughly 154 MW of capacity in 14 states. Among numerous industry firsts and accolades, Meridian was awarded Project of the Year 2006 by the Texas Renewable Industries Association for its complex and pioneering installation on Bldg. 1350 at Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio, and was designated one of the Top 20 Contractors in the United States by Solar Power World in 2013.

Andrew is one of only two inaugural North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners in Texas, and has served on the Boards of the Texas Solar Energy Society, Earth Share of Texas, Texas Renewable Energy Industries Association, and the Alumni Executive at The University of the South, his alma mater.

Ainsley McCaa

Ainsley is a rising senior at Dickinson College, majoring in International Studies with a concentration in Sustainability and Global Environment. She grew interested in environmental work after a trip to the Ecuadorian Amazon in high school, where she learned more about deforestation and environmental tourism. Ainsley became involved with faculty research starting in her sophomore year of college and has worked on studies in both the environmental and economics departments targeting local community issues. At Synergetic, Ainsley works as an intern focusing on landowner research and communications. In her free time, Ainsley enjoys reading and writing, and spending time with her dog.