Dr. Murty V. V. S. Yalla
President, IEEE Fellow

Dr. Murty V.V.S. Yalla has been with Beckwith Electric since 1989 and presently holds the position of President. Previously, he was Vice President of R&D/Engineering from 1994 to 2004. He received a Diploma in Electrical Engineering from Andhra Polytechnic, Kakinada, India in 1976; a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Kakinada, India in 1981; a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, India in 1983; and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the 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. He has published several research papers in international journals on digital protection. He holds five U.S. patents in the areas of digital controls and protective relays.

Dr. Yalla is the Deputy Technical Advisor to the United States National Committee (USNC) of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC, Geneva, Switzerland) Technical Committee 95 (TC 95). He is a U.S. delegate and the chairman of the IEC TC 95 MT4 which is developing functional standards for measuring relays and protection equipment: IEC 60255-151, IEC 60255-127, IEC 60255-121, IEC 60255-187 and IEC 60255-149. He is a U.S. delegate to the International Council on Large Electric Systems (CIGRÈ, Paris, France) Working Groups B5.04 Modern Techniques for Protecting and Monitoring Generating Plants and B5.05 Modern Techniques for Protecting, Controlling and Monitoring of Power Transformers.  He is also a member (subject matter expert) of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) System Protection and Control Subcommittee (SPCS).

In 2006, Dr. Yalla was elected to Fellow grade by the IEEE Fellow Committee for his contributions in computer relays for power systems. He is an active member of the IEEE Power System Relaying Committee (PSRC) for the past 20 years. He is presently the Vice Chair of the Rotating Machinery Protection Subcommittee of the PSRC. He was the chairman of the working group which 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 chaired the working group which received the IEEE Power Engineering Society (PES) Working Group Recognition Award for an outstanding technical report "Application of Peer-to-Peer Communications for Protective Relaying" at the IEEE PES General Meeting in Denver, Colorado in June 2004.

He received the IEEE Florida Council Outstanding Engineer Award in 2005. Dr. Yalla also received the IEC 1906 Award in 2010 which honors the IEC experts around the world in recognizing their exceptional recent achievements and contributions to the IEC committees.

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Chuck Mozina
Consulting Engineer Beckwith Electric, IEEE Fellow

Chuck Mozina is a Contract Consultant, Protection and Protection Systems for Beckwith Electric specializing in power plant and generator protection. His consulting practice involves projects relating to protective relay applications, protection system design and coordination.

Chuck is an active 20+ year member of the IEEE Power System Relaying Committee (PSRC) and is the past chairman of the Rotating Machinery Subcommittee. He is active in the IEEE IAS I&CPS committee, which addresses industrial protection system. He is the past U.S. representative to the CIGRE Study Committee 34 on System Protection and has chaired a CIGRE working group on generator protection. He also chaired the IEEE task force that produced the tutorial "The Protection of Synchronous Generators," which won the PES's 1995 Outstanding Working Group Award. Chuck is the 1993 recipient of the PSRC's Career Service Award.

Chuck has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and has authored a number of papers and magazine articles on protective relaying. He has over 25 years of experience as a protective engineer at Centerior Energy, a major investor-owned utility in Cleveland, Ohio where he was the Manager of the System Protection Section. For the past ten years, he was Application Manager for Protection Products with Beckwith Electric. He is also a former instructor in the Graduate School of Electrical Engineering at Cleveland State University. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Ohio.

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Thomas R. Beckwith
CEO
Beckwith Electric

Thomas R. Beckwith serves as the Chief Executive Officer for Beckwith Electric. He is responsible for providing leadership to develop and implement strategies for product development, marketing, sales, manufacturing, quality control and staffing. In addition, Tom is an important contributor to the strategic planning and growth of Beckwith Electric and provides valuable input into the development of new products and services.

Tom has over thirty-five years of experience in the electric power industry, encompassing the fields of product and systems design, field applications and commissioning, sales, and marketing. He has served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for RFL Electronics, Consultant for Bectech International and was General Manager of the International Division of Basler Electric. Beginning in 1970, Tom worked for Beckwith Electric in several positions in Systems Engineering, Field Commissioning, and Production. Most recently at Beckwith Electric, Tom has held the positions of Vice President of Sales and Marketing and President.

Tom holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) degree from Case Western Reserve University and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from the University of South Florida. He is a member of the IEEE Power Engineering Society and the IEEE Industry Applications Society. He has served on various working groups in the Power Systems Relaying Committee. He is co-inventor of a 1993 U.S. patent on a Multifunction Protective Relay System.

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Dr. Juan Gers
Consulting Engineer

Juan M. Gers obtained a BSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Valle, Colombia, in 1977. In 1981, he obtained a MSc in Power Systems at the Universities of Manchester and Salford in England. In 1998, he earned a PhD at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, where he carried out research in Distribution Systems Automation. In 1981, Dr. Gers founded the consulting company GERS S.A. in Colombia and in 2000, he opened GERS USA in Florida. He lectured at the University of Valle for more than 20 years and served as Columbia's Vice Minister of Mines and Energy. Besides his consulting activities, he devotes time to academic activities and is in charge of several Power Systems courses at Penn State University and Gonzaga University. He is co-author of the book "Protection of Electricity Distribution Networks”, published in 1998 by the IEE (now IET) and is the author/co-author of over 40 technical papers. Dr. Gers is a Chartered Engineer of the IET and Member of IEEE. Currently, he participates in several groups of the Power System Relaying Committee.

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Steve Turner
Sr. Applications Engineer
Beckwith Electric

Steve received both a BSEE and MSEE from Virginia Tech while working for Dominion Power. Steve worked for GEC Measurements as an application engineer focusing on transmission line protection, working with customers such as Commonwealth Edison, Dominion Power, Florida Power and Light, Entergy and Bonneville Power Administration. Steve then left GEC to work for SEL, Inc. from 1996 to 2001 as their first international application engineer. While at SEL, Steve worked in many new markets such as Europe, South America and Asia. Steve next worked for Progress Energy from 2001 to 2007 in their transmission department. At Progress Energy, Steve developed a patent for double ended fault location on transmission lines and also applied it successfully in the field.

Steve is now the Senior Applications Engineer for Beckwith Electric.

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Tom Branch is a Systems Project Engineer for Beckwith Systems Engineering (BSE) of Beckwith Electric. Tom has been with Beckwith Electric since 1986, beginning as a Design Engineer responsible for the development of an advanced capacitor control and later as a Project Engineer for a digital signal processing-based multifunction protective relay. He was also responsible for all product line refinements including testing, customer support, and application specific modifications.

Tom has a BSEE and an MSEE from the University of South Florida. He is a member of the IEEE and the Power Engineering Society.

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