Our Team
Stephen Dryden – Principal
Stephen Dryden is the Principal of RPMA. Mr. Dryden formed Midwest Renewable Energy Corporation (“MREC”) in 2000 and was directly responsible for the initial development of 370 MW of wind farms now in operation at various locations in north central Iowa. Steve went on to form RPMA in 2007 and is now leading the overall effort to develop, own and operate RPMA’s latest set of wind energy projects in Iowa.
Before RPMA and MREC, Mr. Dryden worked for over ten years of various upper management positions developing renewable energy and waste-to-energy projects at FPL Energy (now NextEra), CMS Energy (“CMS”) and Oxford Energy (“Oxford”). Before NextEra, CMS and Oxford, Mr. Dryden worked for over seven years at various field engineering and management positions with Gearhart Industries of Fort Worth, Texas, Schlumberger Offshore of Belle Chasse, Louisiana, and Schlumberger of Canada in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Mr. Dryden was born and raised in Newcastle, Ontario, Canada and earned his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada, Master’s of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Master’s of Business and Administration from Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts. Mr. Dryden currently resides in Winterset, Iowa.
Carl Kiesel – Finance & Asset Management
Carl Kiesel joined RPMA in 2012. Carl is responsible for financial administration, asset management, financial analysis and provides financing support for RPMA and its development projects.
Mr. Kiesel has been involved the renewable energy and power generation industry since the early 90s. Before RPMA, Mr. Kiesel held finance positions at Renewable Energy Systems Americas (“RES”) and FPL Energy (now NextEra), and project experience included wind, solar, geothermal and natural gas-fired power generation.
Mr. Kiesel holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Florida State University and is a certified public accounting in the state of Florida.
Felix Friedman – Development
Felix Friedman started developing wind farms in 2002 for MREC and joined RPMA in 2008 and RPMA Wind in 2010. Felix is involved in all stages of development: site selection & design with special focus on grid access, land agreements, community relations, marketing, finance, and construction activities to assure successful completion of each wind energy project. Felix has diverse business experience, including management consulting, product development of enterprise software, finance, and process re-engineering.
Felix is a Fulbright Scholar holding a Master’s of Business Administration from Cambridge University, England, and a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and International Business from Pennsylvania State University.
Felix immigrated to the United States in 1987 from Ukraine.
Arne Nielsen- Engineering and Site Selection
Arne joined RPMA in 2007 and RPMA Wind in 2010. He is responsible for identifying and designing wind farm sites that have goal-achieving wind regimes as well as access to available transmission capacity, leading to high quality projects. Arne also conducts wind resource assessments and modeling of noise, shadow-flicker, photomontage, wind farm visibility and modeling of wind variations due to terrain and structured array optimization.
As a pioneer in the Danish wind energy industry in the 1970s, Arne played an important role in early designs of wind turbines. He since participated in developing wind projects in Denmark, India, Hawaii, California as well as Iowa and is one of the original architects of numerous techniques used to identify promising wind farm locations.
Arne has participated in retrofit/re-power of wind turbines and later in construction and most elements of site management. Arne came to the US in the late 1980s with a Bachelor Degree in Mechanical Engineering at Odense Teknikum (Denmark) with special achievements in electrical controls and regulation and worked on his PhD at Iowa State University during the start-up of the university’s Wind Energy Science, Engineering and Policy department.
Kevin Lehs – Project Management and Electrical Logistics
Kevin joined RPMA in 2008 and RPMA Wind in 2010 with substantial experience in the electric utility, wind energy and farming industries. Kevin is involved with project management, substation planning and construction, and project construction. Mr. Lehs has a vast amount of technical training in the areas of electrical systems design, power mechanics, and other business disciplines at Northeast Iowa Technical College, University of Wisconsin, and West Texas AMU.
Prior to joining RPMA, Kevin worked for Alliant Energy for 20 years with primary responsibility for distribution and transmission construction and maintenance. In this capacity, he was directly involved in our Top of Iowa Wind Farm developments. While with Alliant, he was involved with substation construction in various parts of the state of Iowa. Kevin also runs Lehs Electric, which is involved with planning and implementing electrical systems for rural and industrial customers.
In 2008 Kevin started working with RPMA in the role of project development. This included working with the project engineers, local farmers in the project, and the counties that the project footprint was located in. In 2011 in Delaware County, Elk Wind was constructed. In 2012 Bethel (Hawkeye) Wind in Fayette County & Rippey Wind in Greene County were constructed. Kevin’s time was reallocated to operations of Elk Wind, Hawkeye Wind, and Rippey Wind with other RPMA team members. He continued in this role with some development until the project’s sale in 2019. He now continues in the role of project development and operation of the Prescott Wind farm located near Prescott, Iowa.
Matt Garwood – Engineering and Pre-Construction
Matt Garwood joined RPMA in 2013 to focus on permitting, land acquisition, siting, and other wind farm development activities. Matt brings over 4 years’ experience in the wind energy sector. He holds a bachelor’s in construction engineering from Iowa State University and obtained his Civil P.E. license in 2000. He specializes in environmental permitting, construction permitting, mapping, and on-site constructability.
Prior to RPMA Wind, Matt worked as a professional engineering consultant from 2000 – 2004. He has worked on wind projects located across the Midwest, including Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. His first project accomplishment was the successful construction of the Top of Iowa Windfarm for Midwest Renewable Energy Corporation in 2001 (predecessor corporation of RPM Access). Outside of wind energy, Matt has extensive experience in poured concrete foundation construction and surveying.
Aaron Theisen – Project Development & Operations Management
Aaron Theisen joined RPMA Wind in 2010. He handles a variety of roles in project development and operations management. In project development, Aaron works directly with landowner/community relationships, legal documentation and contract review, site permitting, construction management, and writing proposals for utility RFP’s. In operations, Aaron leads RPMA’s asset registration and marketplace activities within MISO, regulatory compliance, project site management, control center systems, and real-time generation control desk.
At the University of Wisconsin, Aaron earned a BBA in Real Estate and Urban Land Economics, with additional majors in Risk Management & Insurance and Psychology. Prior to joining the wind development industry, Aaron worked in Corporate Insurance Risk Management. He advised companies on insurance practices, managed client relationships, performed insurance markets analyses, assisted with internal software rollouts and conducted sales.
Tanya Olson – Wind Project Development
Tanya Olson joined RPMA in 2013 to lead landowner relations and land contracts, permitting and other development activities. Prior to joining RPMA, Tanya had over 15 years of experience in the wind energy industry with leading companies such as FPL Energy (currently NextEra) and Iberdrola Renewables (currently Avangrid). Tanya’s experience includes construction management, safety coordination, human resources and event planning.
Tanya was born and raised in Fertile, Iowa, and currently lives in West Des Moines.
Jacob Honkomp – Data Management, Operations & Development
Jacob Honkomp joined RPMA in 2024. Jacob is involved in project development and operations management. With this, he is responsible for overall development procedures and assisting with day-to-day wind farm operations.
Jacob holds a Bachelor of Science from Iowa State University and a Master of Science in Finance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Prior to joining RPMA, Jacob held finance positions at BP and Green Plains Inc. He brings extensive experience in commodity markets, particularly in Natural Gas and Ethanol.
Tornike (Tony) Nikabadze – Project development and construction management
Tornike Nikabadze was born in the country of Georgia. He holds a Master’s degree in Law and served for 23 years in Georgian government services. In 2001, he completed an executive program in International and Security Affairs at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies.
In 2008, Tornike joined RPMA, where he has been actively involved in development and construction management. Tornike is a family man with a wife, two children, and one grandchild. He enjoys living in Waukee, Iowa, and values the strong sense of community the area offers.
Beso Svanidze – Operations, Maintenance & Construction
Beso joined RPMA in 2012 and has been involved in all aspects of project operation & maintenance activities including ongoing equipment maintenance, met tower installations, and various construction oversight functions.
Beso holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Tbilisi State University. He moved from Georgia to Iowa with his wife and two kids in 2005.