Ryan Kemmet
Principal, Mend Energy. Engineer since 2004, licensed attorney since 2010, and for the last decade the person owners call when a power project needs both at once. The person who reviews the engineering is the person who writes the terms.
The engineering
Materials science and engineering at the University of Arizona, then vacuum metallurgy at Refrac Systems, where the work included developing titanium foam for orthopedic implants and diffusion bonding it to the substrate underneath. That is where the habit started: understand the material before you trust the drawing.
Hydrogen work began in 2011 at Advanced Green Innovations, as senior product engineer. I built a compression package for onboard refueling and a flare gas mitigation technology that became its own hydrogen company. From 2017 to 2018 I was Director of Global Innovation at Linamar, where the mandate was to take a passenger car powertrain business somewhere broader and the vehicle for it was hydrogen storage.
Since 2018 the work has been independent: gas to power and behind-the-meter generation, hydrogen stations and on-site production, thermal and refrigeration systems, transformers and power electronics.
The law
JD from Washington University in St. Louis, admitted to the Arizona bar in 2010. I have run my own practice since then, mostly commercial agreements, diligence and structuring.
That practice is separate from Mend Energy, and Mend Energy engagements are advisory and engineering rather than legal representation. What the license changes is the reading. When a term sheet, an EPC scope or an interconnection agreement lands on the table, I know what it actually obligates you to do, and whether the engineering behind it can be delivered on those terms.
Why both
On a power project the technical decisions and the commercial decisions are the same decisions wearing different clothes. Where you set emissions determines the permit path. The permit path determines the schedule. The schedule determines what the offtake is worth and what the financing costs.
Most projects have an engineer who does not read the contract and a lawyer who does not read the heat balance, and the gap between them is where schedule and money go. Closing that gap is the reason this firm exists.
Credentials
BS Materials Science and Engineering, University of Arizona
JD, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law
Arizona State Bar, admitted 2010
Named inventor on four issued US patents and ten further published patent applications
Published SAE technical papers
Program experience across DOE, ARPA-E, CEC, CARB and the LCFS
Want to talk it through?
The fastest way to find out whether any of this is useful to you is a conversation.