Leadership

Adam Knudsen

General Manager

Adam currently leads the daily management of Dynapower, including its ongoing growth into the clean energy market.

Adam has held many roles within the company since 1993 when he started as a Sales Engineer. He led the development of the company’s high-power rectifier and cast coil transformer groups, and later became the Sales and Marketing Manager. He has managed global sales and marketing, and spearheaded new market development, personally managing high-value strategic accounts. He also led the company’s growth into the energy storage and military power electronics markets.

Adam became Chief of Operations in 2004, overseeing engineering, manufacturing, and sales. He led the first large-scale market introduction of chopper, successfully penetrating the mining and electrochemical industries.

Adam graduated from University of Maine with a degree in Engineering Physics, with concentrations in Electrical Engineering and Economics.

Brandon Sorensen

Vice President, Sales & Marketing

As Vice President of Sales & Marketing since 2018, Brandon leads Dynapower’s Sales, Marketing, Product Management and Project Execution teams.

Brandon has more than 18 years of experience directing companies with revenues of $1 billion or more. He has led these companies through integration of multiple business units, survival, turn-around, and growth modes.

Prior to Dynapower, Brandon was Vice President of Sales for TPC Wire & Cable Corp., where he was responsible for global sales and created a key account strategy that drove sales through their most profitable customers, vertical markets, strategic distributors, and OEM customers. 

Before TPC, Brandon was Market General Manager for Barnes Distribution where he led new business development. In his sales leadership positions at both Barnes Distribution and OfficeMax Print & Document Services, Brandon took underperforming teams and grew them to top producers.

Brandon holds a Bachelor of Arts & Science degree from Bowling Green State University. He lives in Westlake, Ohio with his two sons and daughter.

Jack McCarthy

Vice President, Engineering

As Vice President of Engineering, Jack McCarthy has strong working knowledge of all types of power supplies, allowing him to lead Dynapower’s project engineering, product-line engineering, and R&D teams.

Since joining Dynapower in 1989, Jack has been involved in a wide variety of power conversion engineering disciplines. From his early work until now, Jack’s contributions to the company are numerous, and much of his work is now standard in the power supply industry. His enhancement of chopper power supply technology allowed Dynapower’s expansion into additional markets, including mining, plasma, and hydrogen. He was instrumental in updating the controls for both the output voltage and current regulation, as well as the active balancing of phase-shifted IGBT outputs. His extensive engineering expertise includes device selection, cooling systems, reliability analysis, and EMI suppression.

From 1976 to 1988, Jack served in numerous lead roles at Fermilab, and was involved in all aspects of accelerator design, theory, and commissioning. His accelerator experience has provided him with direct working knowledge of all types of power supplies.

Jack graduated from the University of Illinois in 1969 with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and holds a Master’s in Electrical Engineering from Midwest College of Engineering, 1975.

Renee Naud

Vice President of Human Resources & Corporate Counsel

Renee’s work at Dynapower includes leading the organization’s people, performance, and talent, in addition to serving as Corporate Counsel.

Renee is an accomplished corporate counsel and human resources executive with 25 years of experience in the manufacturing sector.

Prior to moving to Vermont, she worked for a world‐leading plastic packaging manufacturer with nearly $3B in revenue and more than 5,000 employees as in‐house legal counsel. She later served as Executive Vice President of Talent Management and as European Legal Counsel and liaison to the Global Legal Department in Italy. In this role, she led the enterprise’s European operations, including employment labor matters, corporate compliance, significant acquisitions, and commercial transactions.

She was also principal for Naud Law, PLLC, an independent legal consulting practice.

Renée holds both a BA in English and JD from the University of Detroit Mercy. She is a member of the state bars of Michigan and Vermont. She is also a facilitator with Cornell University online, supporting the Strategic HR Leadership and Employment Law Certificate programs.

Don Gill

Director of Engineering, Clean Energy & Defense Systems

Don joined Dynapower in 2004 and is currently responsible for all aspects of Dynapower’s large clean energy and defense projects—from proposal application designs and costing to the final shipped product.

Don’s contributions to Dynapower include expanding contract manufacturing capabilities and supporting the establishment of clean energy product lines in China and India.

As the company’s first degreed mechanical engineer, Don was responsible for implementing SolidWorks 3D modeling software as a key tool for the expanding industry-wide requirements for efficient and repeatable manufacturing. He served as Mechanical Engineering Manager for six years, leading an expanding team of mechanical engineers while supporting the design and release of manufacturing drawings across all product lines at Dynapower. He also served as Engineering Manager for the Power Systems and Advanced Systems groups and has led electrical and software engineers in addition to the mechanical team.

Don studied mechanical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and earned his BS in Engineering from the University of Vermont. He wrapped up his education with an additional two years of management-focused courses.

Chris Larsen

Senior Director, Clean Energy

As a 20‐year clean energy veteran, Chris is responsible for commercial and project management efforts for all clean energy segments at Dynapower, including renewable energy, microgrid, e‐mobility, and hydrogen.

Chris previously led business development in energy storage, where he was responsible for rolling out Dynapower’s Southern Asia partnership with Newen Systems, and positioning Dynapower as the leading power electronics provider for hybrid solar plus storage systems. He teamed with Dr. Somani, Dynapower’s Research & Development Lead, to bring the market-defining DC‐DC technology to life.

Chris entered the clean energy field as Policy Director for North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center. He also spent ten years with ABB in various roles in inverter design, R&D, and more.

Chris has a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from NC State and a degree in Economics with high honors from Princeton. He is on the boards of NC Green Power and the Princeton Alumni Schools Committee and is a thick-skinned member of the Burlington open water swim club. He and his wife split their time between Burlington, Vermont and North Carolina, where their two daughters go to school.

Shane Williams

Director, Quality & Regulatory Compliance

Shane first joined Dynapower in 2010 and has led the establishment of its ISO 9001-compliant quality system along with a robust environmental compliance program. 

Shane has more than 30 years of experience in the development, implementation, and management of quality and regulatory compliance systems within Vermont manufacturing companies. From 2014 to 2019, Shane was the Director of Quality and Continuous Improvement at Revision Military, where he gained extensive knowledge in military contract requirements and specifications. His prior work history also includes Nathaniel Group Inc., Nexus Custom Electronics, and Digital Equipment Corp. 

In 2020, Shane returned to Dynapower as Director of Quality Assurance and Regulatory Compliance, eager to support Dynapower’s mission of powering a cleaner planet.

Apurva Somani

Research & Development Lead

Dr. Apu Somani has been with Dynapower since 2012 and is responsible for the development of new products for the Clean Energy Business Unit.

During his time at Dynapower, Apu has helped launch grid-tied and off-grid power conversion product lines ranging from 100 to 3000kW. He was promoted to R&D lead in 2016 and led the recent investment by Dynapower in a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) platform for real-time simulation of power electronic circuits and controllers. This investment has led to increased efficiencies in product development and troubleshooting. Apu’s leadership of the R&D team has led to several patents and technical publications contributing to Dynapower’s strong IP portfolio.

Apu received his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 2006, and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 2012.

Medina Maric

Engineering Manager, Power Systems

Medina leads the Power Systems Engineering Group at Dynapower, which is responsible for the design and technical sales of thyristor power supplies for plating and anodizing, switchmode power supplies with IGBT technology, medium-size specialty rectifiers for steel, and large multi-MW power supplies for mining, electrochemical, and centralized hydrogen applications.

Medina joined Dynapower in 2002 as a Senior Electrical Engineer. Her career began in Bosnia as an electrical engineer in a steel mill. Her experience includes switchgear design for General Switchgear and Controls LTD and Schneider Electric Canada, and power electronics/power supplies design for Inverpower/Satcon in Burlington, Canada. She fell in love with power electronics work with Rapid Power and has continued this work at Dynapower for almost 20 years. She was promoted to Engineering Manager in August 2017.

Medina holds an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia. She is an active member of the Advisory Committee for Vermont Technical College and is involved with Vermont women’s organizations. She is fluent in English and Bosnian and is making progress in Spanish. Medina loves fishing, hiking, oil painting, and writing.

Matthew Paul

Sales Manager, Power Systems

Since 2021, Matt has led the power systems segment of Dynapower, taking responsibility for the mining, electrochemical, military, metal finishing, steel, and marine segments.

Matt previously held roles in Manufacturing and Aftermarket Service, growing the Aftermarket divison by bringing new service and refurbishment programs to market, and creating a collaborative approach, outreach, and training process for customers. He spent his immediate post-college years working in aerospace while running his own business in the custom automotive & motorcycle industry before joining Dynapower in 2011.

Matt is a lifelong Vermont resident, graduating from Lyndon State College with a Bachelor’s in Business and Audio Production. He is based out of Dynapower’s corporate headquarters in Vermont and lives in Vergennes, VT with his wife and three children.

Timothy Varhue

Director, Product Management

Timothy currently leads product management for the Clean Energy and Power Systems groups at Dynapower. In this role, he is responsible for product strategy, product development, and product delivery. He and his team work to scale products from concept to high-volume production to meet market demands.

Recently, he has worked to launch Dynapower’s new line of next generation products for utility scale, C&I, and solar plus storage energy storage applications. He has worked on power electronic conversion technologies in a range of technical and commercial roles, spanning from the design of novel power electronic systems to the sale of integrated energy storage systems.

Timothy holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Vermont, and a Masters of Management from the University of Melbourne. 

Craig Duncan

Manufacturing Manager

Craig’s role at Dynapower includes full spectrum accountability for the manufacturing and production of Dynapower’s products, from incoming materials, to sub-assembly, to shipping finished products.   

An accomplished manufacturing and electronics professional, Craig has nearly 40 years of experience in manufacturing and the trades. He joined Dynapower in 2004 as a Final Assembly Technician, advancing through the organization in a variety of manufacturing and production roles with increasing responsibility. Prior to joining Dynapower, Craig worked as an accomplished Certified Journeyman Electrician for 23 years in the commercial and residential sectors.

In his professional development, Craig promotes positive attitude, teamwork, a strong work ethic, and accountability, mirroring Dynapower’s core values.  

While not working, he enjoys motorcycling on his Harley Davidson and riding his Sea-Doo with his wife of 34 years.

Amalia Langlinais

Purchasing Manager

Amalia joined Dynapower in 2020 and is responsible for managing a team of supply chain professionals. She is accountable for purchasing decisions for finished goods and manufacturing components for all of Dynapower’s business units and segments.

With deep knowledge in inventory management and supply chains, Amalia’s experience covers a wide range of business markets, including aftermarket automotive manufacturing, public electric utilities, hospitals, laboratories, and even movie theaters. 

Amalia has a Bachelor’s in Biological Anthropology from University of California San Diego and an International Master’s with a concentration in Operations/Supply Chain Management from Southern New Hampshire University. She and her husband moved to Vermont to be closer to family and live in Charlotte with their daughter, son, and four dogs.