In life, we all need guidance, especially when aiming for success in high-stakes environments. Our Subject Matter Experts are dedicated to improving human and organizational performance. Your success isn’t just our mission—it’s our obsession. Meet the team ready to elevate your potential!
Rey Gonzalez
Leading the charge for saving lives and livelihoods every day using an expert team of Subject Matter Experts.
Rey Gonzalez is the founder and president of HOPE Consulting, LLC, and CEO of both High Reliability Training, Inc. and High Reliability Partners, LLC. With over four decades of experience in power plant operations, he specializes in improving safety, quality, and profitability by enhancing human performance in high-reliability organizations. Rey focuses on leadership coaching, helping management and workers understand their roles in sustaining high-reliability operations. His work emphasizes the importance of human performance and organizational defenses, shaping behaviors to improve safety and effectiveness. His expertise allows his companies to consistently save lives and livelihoods.
Subject Matter Experts
Meet our team of specialized expertise backing HOPE Consulting.
Ed Gatto
As a consultant with Hope Consulting, Ed Gatto works with clients across the U.S. to improve human performance, supervisor/worker relationships, and site culture. Ed’s experience includes 46 years in the electric power industry, with 20 years specifically focused on Human Performance, including training, root cause analysis, and program management. Ed also has experience in executive leadership and coaching.
Sandy Lamb
Sandy Lamb had a long career, spanning 27 years with a global, private Engineering/Construction firm and worked in several business lines across numerous functions ultimately landing in Program Management. She was fortunate to travel with her family throughout the U.S. assigned to many signature projects: including Chief of Staff, Homeland Security Technology Program at Nevada Test Site training first responders for DHS, Assistant Project Manager at St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant in Florida and her final project, Program Manager destroying chemical weapons stockpile at Army Pueblo Chemical Depot (PCAPP) in Colorado for the Department of Defense.
Sandy graduated from Johns Hopkins University with an MBA in International Business. She is a certified executive education instructor for the Women’s Leadership Program at University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS), a certified executive coach and consultant for companies like Sparrks and HOPE Consulting LLC. She has a passion for professional speaking and has traveled the world to deliver her message on emotional intelligence, empathy and psychological safety to live stages in Indonesia, Thailand, Canada, Australia and the US. In 2023, Sandy became a #1 international best-selling author with her book, “Cracking the Rich Code, Volume 10”. Her chapter titled “Return on Empathy” shares her journey to personal belonging and higher emotional intelligence in male-saturated industries, where she worked before becoming an entrepreneur focused on giving back and supporting girls and women in STEM. As owner and CEO of Altitude Executive Coaching, Sandy will help you to build a culture of mutual respect and belonging within your organization. Nurturing relationships at work is an investment in how much you care. In return: motivation, employee engagement, trust and confidence grow along with your bottom line.
Sandy resides in Colorado Springs with her husband of 28 years and their three children. She loves her weekly bible study group, hot yoga, and is currently pursuing her brown belt in Goju-Ryu karate.
Steve Koenig
Steve Koenig has forty years of experience in power plant construction and operations with specific expertise in Nuclear Oversight, Organizational and Performance Improvement. His belief is that good leaders achieve results through the efforts of others. Through effective communication, coaching with clear feedback, and mentoring, people will be empowered with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to achieve results safely and efficiently.
Joe Eassa
Joe Eassa has 40 years of experience in the nuclear industry. He has extensive expertise in all aspects of nuclear operations, maintenance, work planning, operations training, human performance, and technical procedure writing. Joe’s contributions include delivery and support to electric utility industries, oil & gas, and more. Providing (1) Coaching to Enhance Performance®, an approach to coaching that has received tremendous results within various industries; (2) Trigger Training®, which is a first-of-its-kind training in human error reduction; and (3) Supervisor-level mentoring to enhance leader behaviors and coaching skills for culture transformation in performance and safety improvement.
Adalberto Garcia
Adalberto Garcia has more than 42 years of experience in commercial generation including nuclear, natural gas and fossil fuels. His focus for most of those years was engaging others to recognize and achieve industry standards of excellence. Adalberto’s efforts concentrate on helping all levels of the organization to internalize past operating experience, improve human performance skills, coach leadership behaviors and understand behavior-based methods of improvement. This led to reduced accident and human performance rates at several commercial generation power plants. Adalberto has also worked in several corporate oversight positions through which he provided consultation, assessment and guidance to several organizations across the United States.
Alex Kent
Alex Kent joined Chevron in 2005 as the Reliability Advisor for Global Manufacturing/Refining after a 30+ year career in the nuclear power industry. His previous experience includes an extensive background in maintenance, operations, engineering, and leadership at Naval Nuclear Submarines, research and commercial nuclear facilities. He led the reliability team for the Chevron Manufacturing Corporate Reliability Center of Excellence and was responsible for the development and deployment of integrated reliability strategies in manufacturing. In 2009 he changed assignments to Chevron Global Upstream & Gas in a similar capacity to oversee the development and deployment of reliability practices in Chevron Upstream. In 2011 Alex was recruited as the Vice President of Engineering for AngloGold Ashanti, the third largest gold miner in the world. In this capacity he oversaw the development of the engineering and maintenance departments, plant technical support, reliability practices, and brownfield/greenfield capital projects around the globe. During this time all-in-sustaining costs were reduced from $1250 USD oz to $850 USD oz through the implementation of Operational Excellence. He retired from full time work at the end of 2019. Alex holds a bachelor’s degree in Nuclear Engineering and Science from the University of Maryland.
Trip Farris
Trip Farris has been a leader on the front lines of operations in the power industry most of his professional career. He served as a nuclear trained naval officer, was a licensed senior reactor operator, and has worked over 35 years in power generation. His experiences at both nuclear and conventional generating stations give him a fresh perspective on the balance required of all leaders to meet production expectations while focusing on safety and human error prevention. He has in depth experience with coaching, human performance improvement, a strong corrective action program, procedure enhancements, and the Systematic Approach to Training. He is also a licensed Professional Engineer in Mechanical Engineering.
Rob Buckingham
Rob Buckingham is a Performance Improvement Leader who drives safe, creative, efficient and ethical solutions using expertise in human performance, safety, service reliability and overall customer satisfaction. Identify root causes using proven and thorough investigation methodologies. Rob produces meaningful and effective corrective actions and fosters a learning organization within a Just Culture through mentoring. Rob’s areas of expertise include:
- Performance Analysis
- Human Error Prevention
- Learning Program Design and Delivery
- Incident Investigation
- Safety Culture Improvement
- Behavior Observation and Coaching
- Strategic Planning and Execution
- Emergency Restoration Leadership
Donnie Duffee
With over 44 years of experience in Electrical Power Generation, Donnie Duffee brings deep industry knowledge and leadership across both operations and human Performance. His career began in plant operations, where he advanced from equipment operator to Shift Supervisor, gaining a solid foundation in the day-to-day challenges of power generation. For more than a decade he served as Plant Manager, overseeing both natural gas and coal-fired facilities. In these roles, he led teams, optimized plant performance, and ensured regulatory compliance and safety improvement process by utilizing HOP practices. Over the past 15 years, he has focused on Human Performance improvement, developing and delivering training programs that reduce error, enhance reliability, and build stronger organizational culture. Today, he consults with energy companies to apply practical, experience-driven strategies that improve safety, efficiency, and team performance.
Dawn Roberts
Dawn Roberts has 36 years of nuclear experience (15 years of international experience). She has a proven track record of leading change, delivering performance improvement, and driving organizational effectiveness. She is dedicated to influencing leaders to stretch and strengthen their capabilities for the establishment of a strong safety culture within a High-Reliability Organization. Dawn joined Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) / Nawah Energy in the UAE as the Head of Nuclear Performance Improvement, where she developed and managed the HU, Self-Assessment, and Benchmarking programs. She was then promoted to Head of Organizational Effectiveness (OE), where she provided oversight and support for Leadership Effectiveness, Team Effectiveness, Cultural Development, and Nuclear English Proficiency for a workforce comprising more than 40 countries. Soon after, she was made the Effective Safety Communications Manager. She successfully led the WANO Pre-Start-Up Reviews for OR for Units 1 and 2 with no findings. Her team also developed the world’s first Nuclear English Program and Nuclear English Proficiency Standard. Dawn also helped to revise the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safety Guides and Related Reports on Leadership, Management for Safety, and Safety Culture.
It starts with a conversation
It all starts with a phone call where we can learn about you, your company and the challenges you're trying to overcome.
