B.S. Mechanical Engineer from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City South Dakota class of 1984 with over 30 years in the power industry. Paul Trygstad, President and Managing Member of West Peak Energy, has 35 years of experience working in the energy industry. Mr. Trygstad has 20 years of experience working in the Electric Utility Industry for power companies with positions ranging from plant engineer, supervisor, manager to executive. Since 2000, Paul has worked for engineering consulting firms as well as electric utilities.

Current role at West Peak includes member manager and support the company with consulting services. West Peak supports the energy industry with Construction Management, Executive Consulting, Owners Engineering, Independent Engineering, Technical Advisory Services, O&M engineering support, new power plant siting studies and construction for domestic and international clients.

Mr. Trygstad has supported both thermal energy and renewable energy projects (solar, wind and alternative energy). Consulting engineering has included trusted advisory skills for lenders, project sponsors, large and small scale studies, design analysis, technical review and Client support. Significant responsibilities in Project Management has included successful completion of peaking power projects under budget and ahead of schedule in New Mexico, Iowa and Colorado. Other Independent Engineering and Owners Engineering projects have included over 100 clients since 2000 in the U.S., Philippines and Indonesia.
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Project experience includes project management, owners engineering and independent engineering. Director and Project Manager for several new power plant projects (completed and constructed). As a utility engineer and manager Mr. Trygstad has significant operations and maintenance experience, including involvement in over 34 power plant outages during his career, 12 of which included major turbine repair outages with primary responsibilities. His role as a turbine engineer, utility engineer and management team member has included participation in well over 100 startups of fossil fired generating stations, most of which include large base loaded units.