Authors

Lars Cleath

Lars Cleath


Lars Cleath joined Direct Energy as a Senior Market Intel Analyst in May of 2009. He’s responsible for supporting various areas of the business including wholesale trading, market analysis, online auctions, and sales support.  Lars is able to build and maintain forward pricing models, create hedging strategies for large customers as well as provide governance and accountability over the online power pricing platform.

Lars began building his professional energy portfolio more than a decade ago. His experience in managing procurement strategies, training a staff of Power Coordinators, and building and maintaining solid supplier relations made Lars a perfect fit as a Senior Analyst for Direct Energy. Lars holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

While passionate about portfolio profiling and market analysis, Lars aspires to be a wine shop owner. An avid cyclist and enthusiastic traveler, Lars along with his wife and son share their Pittsburgh home with their dog Rufus and cats Benny and Pinky.

Mike Krygowski

Mike Krygowski


Forget man of the hour. Mike is the man of the hourly. For more than eight years, Mike Krygowski, Senior Analyst for Market Intelligence, has negotiated the varied landscape of trading and portfolio management to become the voice of reason for maintaining industry relationships to spur hedging opportunities for Direct Energy’s large and industrial customers.

From his foundation as a Real-Time Trader and Power Supply Coordinator, Mike’s built up his energy expertise for providing detailed hedging recommendations to both internal and external customers as well as reporting the impact that regulatory changes may have to various strategy groups.

He attended Penn State University where he obtained a Bachelor of Science and majored in Business Management, though his dream job was to become an Air Force fighter pilot. This energy expert is proud to call Pittsburgh his home with his wife and three furry family members: Bailey (woof), Gizmo and Gracie (meow-meow).

Joe Polka


Joe Polka joined Direct Energy as Senior Market Intelligence Analyst in April of 2011 and is now Senior Analyst Market Analytics. In this role, it is his responsibility to provide market analysis on the electric and natural gas markets as well as to purchase wholesale electricity on behalf of large corporations. Prior to this appointment, Joe held positions as a forecast and marketing analyst for Latrobe Steel and as an Economist for the Bureau of Economic Analysis and for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in D.C.

Passionate about economics, Joe has placed himself in the professor’s chair numerous times, teaching courses that include Advanced Micro and Macroeconomics in college and university settings. Joe earned an M.S in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a B.S. in Economics and Mathematics from Saint Vincent College.

This numbers man does have a sense of humor at the end of the day when he admits that the two historical figures he would most likely take out for beers are Jesus and Ayn Rand…in the same room! Joe calls Greensburg, PA his home with his wife, two children and dog SheeSha.

Hans Rottmann


Drawing from 22 years of experience in retail and wholesale energy markets, Hans leads our Market Intelligence team to provide our entire base of North American customers with insightful, actionable perspective on wholesale electricity and natural gas market activities and trends. Hans also serves our PowerPortfolio clients by developing and implementing electricity buying strategies.

In addition, before joining Direct Energy Business, Hans worked on the wholesale side of the industry as a natural gas trader with National Fuel and CNG Energy. His previous retail industry experience includes consulting for large industrials as a senior energy manager at Columbia Energy Services.

Hans graduated cum laude with a BS in Accounting and MIS from the University of Buffalo. He also received his MBA from the University of Buffalo.
Hans drinks more coffee than fellow blogger Lars and uses the extra boost for lunch time marathon training runs and to talk really fast on his weekly podcast that is posted on the Direct Energy Business website (called Energy Insights). He has many kids with his wonderful wife and resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Chris Dubay


Guitar, biking and swimming enthusiast, Chris Dubay joined Direct Energy in August of 2012 in their Binghamton, New York office. He moved to Pittsburgh in February 2013 and is now a Senior Analyst for the Market Intelligence team. Chris stays on top of the New York and New England energy markets supporting the sales team by providing current market information and pricing signals to optimize the benefits to Direct Energy’s commercial and industrial customers.

Prior to his current position, Chris worked at First Energy, Equitable Resources, Select Energy, and NYSEG Solutions/Energetix. His past job duties include power dispatcher in a system control center, trading energy in the Midwest and PJM, and lastly, made a move to the retail energy side of the business.

Unlike Hans, Chris had to give up running because his knees refuse to cooperate, but has taken up biking and swimming, and the occasional ski trip out west. He pretends to know a little bit about photography and plays guitar in a classic rock band in Cleveland. Rather than collecting baseball cards or stamps, Chris loves collecting hot sauces. He has a son with a chemical engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and two cats, Sid and Nancy.