Management Profile
PowerComm Engineering employs many bright and genuine people who contribute to the company’s success. The prosperity the company enjoys today is primarily due to the careful and deliberate management of all aspects of the business. The management team has remained constant since the firm was started and this consistency is a key to the company’s success. The business experiences, special skills and major accomplishments of the key members of management, are discussed in the following paragraphs.
Mike Leahy
One of PowerComm Engineering’s founders, Mike Leahy, is the CEO of the company. He worked for 13 years at Tampa Electric Company as a Transmission Engineer. During his tenure at Tampa Electric, he led the conversion from wood poles to concrete poles for transmission lines during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. In 1995, he won the Southeast Electrical Engineering award for transmission excellence and capped his Tampa Electric career in 1996 with the design of the famed Mickey Mouse transmission structure that can be seen on the I-4 approach into Orlando.
In 1997, he became the Vice President and principal of a local engineering and construction company. Mike was principally responsible for the firm’s business growth from approximately $1.5 million to nearly $12 million in three years.
Mike has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from Virginia Tech and the University of South Florida, respectively. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. He is also a Professional Surveyor and Mapper in Florida and Georgia and has his General Contractor’s License in Florida. His extensive engineering and surveying experience provides an immense project resource, keeping him actively involved in the engineering and project management side of PowerComm.
Community involvement is important to Mike and his family. They actively participate in activities to feed the homeless in the greater Tampa community. Mike is also a proud youth soccer coach.
Mike Schnell
Mike Schnell is the President and co-founder of PowerComm Engineering. He worked at Tampa Electric Company for 13 years, working his way from Principal Engineer to the Director of Power Engineering and Construction (a subsidiary of Tampa Electric). In 1999, he also joined the same engineering and construction firm as Mike Leahy as Vice President and principal with primary responsibility for the engineering division. Mike created and developed the electric utility business at the company, complementing the ongoing wireless telecommunications work.
Mike is a board member for the Tampa Bay Chapter of the Virginia Tech Alumni Association with primary responsibility for raising funds to support a scholarship to attend Virginia Tech. He is a past recipient of the Chapter Officer of the Year Award for Virginia Tech. In addition, he is a former member of the board of advisors for his local YMCA and past winner of the Suncoast YMCA Volunteer of the Year Award. He is a current member of the Suncoast Youth Foundation and actively coaches competitive youth basketball teams.
He completed his degree in Electrical Engineering at Virginia Tech and later completed his MBA at the University of Tampa. Mike is a Registered Professional Engineer in Florida, Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia. At PowerComm he is responsible for overall corporate management.
David Kimpland
David Kimpland is the Engineering Manager at PowerComm Engineering. A founding member of the PowerComm team, he began his career in the precast concrete industry, and later moved to Progress Energy and Tampa Electric Company. David has managed engineering groups at each of these organizations over the past twenty-plus years. His technical and management experience brings direction to the project management of PowerComm’s diverse power line and wireless communications market segments.
He has served and continues to be involved in a number of community and civic volunteer capacities including: youth soccer coach and board member, Guardian Ad Litem, school advisory council, school volunteer, PTA and Athletic Booster board member, home owners association and architectural review committee board member, as well as volunteer activities through his local church.
David holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of South Florida, and is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Florida. His primary responsibility at PowerComm is management of survey, drafting and engineering services.
Andrew Hanson
Andrew Hanson joined PowerComm Engineering in 2004, opening the PowerComm office in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has broad based experience in electric utilities and industrial power systems and extensive experience with studies and implementation strategies in the areas of system design, planning, load forecasting, maintenance planning, statistical analysis and industrial systems. He has worked for ABB, Siemens Energy and Automation and Tampa Electric Company.
Andrew is an active volunteer for Habitat for Humanity of Wake County, having worked on over five houses from start to finish, one each in the past five years. He is also an officer of the Triangle Georgia Tech Alumni Association, responsible for the Triangle Club reaching the annual giving goal.
Andrew has a BEE from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a MEE and Ph.D. from Auburn University. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and Professional Engineer in Florida, Georgia, New York and North Carolina. Andrew has published more than 20 papers and articles. He is an Editorial Board Member for IEEE Power and Energy Magazine as well as for the Power Engineering Handbook. His primary responsibility at PowerComm is the development and execution of the electrical consulting business.
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