Several forces within GE Vernova align in its new Energy of Change in Action storytelling campaign: a century-old commitment to breakthrough ideas, the relentless optimism of the company’s employees, and their common sense of purpose in meeting tomorrow’s challenges today. From developing advanced grid technologies in France to leading wind services in Brazil to managing turbine sites around the world, GE Vernova’s brilliant engineers are driving the energy transition forward. Three of them are featured in the company’s global brand campaign, which launched in April and whose voiceover reminds us, “Optimism isnʼt sunshine and rainbows. Itʼs fixing things, changing things.” Their stories celebrate the spirit and impact of such positive determination throughout the company, and how they and thousands of their colleagues at GE Vernova bring the “Energy of Change” to life every day.
Optimism and Dynamism
Decades before joining GE Vernova, Diana Leguizamón-Cabra brought change to the energy business itself. She grew up in a small Colombian town in the Andes where electricity was effectively the family business. “Most everyone in my family were electricians at the local power plant, and I often went there when I was very small, because I loved learning about how it worked,” says Leguizamón-Cabra. While her small town had very traditional roles for women, she was part of the generation that changed this. “The women I grew up with became engineers,” she says. “Industrial engineers, civil engineers, petrol engineers.”
Knowing very little French, Leguizamón-Cabra entered the electrical engineering program at France’s National Institute of Applied Science (INSA), then started as an intern at GE Vernova’s Villeurbanne Research Center, where she quickly developed a passion for extra-high voltage. “I really liked the physics of it,” she says. “There are fascinating challenges in managing so much power in this particular form.”
Now a research engineer at GE Vernova’s Research Center for High Voltage Technology, she marries this fascination to a mission, developing technology that supports grid decarbonization. “Our goal here is to design the apparatus from very new concepts, helping it evolve into a new era,” says Leguizamón-Cabra. To her, “the energy of change” means “optimism and dynamism,” she says. “It means not being alarmist, but action-oriented. We want to do something. We have the energy to put change into the work, to do things differently.”
Leading Through Example
Some 5,000 miles away in Bahia, Brazil, Thiago Damásio grew up with a strong consciousness of climate change. “I think the younger generation in general is more educated about the issue,” he says. “Where older generations have only known oil and gas, younger people will see hydro, wind, and other sources of renewable energy. So I think everyone working in renewable energy has a big opportunity to change the future.”
Damásio joined GE Vernova in 2013, initially as a technician doing work at the Alto Sertão I wind farm in Guanambi, Brazil, operated by Renova, where he quickly fell in love with the work and with the natural beauty it helps preserve. “I feel blessed because I live with my wife in Chapada Diamantina, where we have a lot of waterfalls and rivers to explore,” he says. This daily inspiration amplifies his passion for new modes and systems of renewables. “In my case, it’s very simple,” Damásio says. “The longer our wind turbines are functional and available, the more renewable energy they can generate.”
As services leader in Wind for GE Vernova, he’s responsible for the operation and maintenance of the wind farm’s 33 Cypress turbines, managing both GE Vernova and third-party teams involved in the facility and ensuring environmental, health, and safety processes are followed for both workers and customers. On the engineering side, he’s helped deliver software that generates reports on parts key to a wind turbine’s life span.
As the key user of enterprise resource planning (ERP) for Latin America, Damásio helped to integrate GE Vernova within the larger ERP systems of the region, and sees part of his challenge as bringing greater awareness to what he and his colleagues are doing at the remotes wind farms. “Renewable energy in Brazil is very new,” he says. “And we need to change the mentality and some behaviors.” To Damásio, bringing the energy of change means leading through example.
Bringing the Right Tools
For Brian Tackett, energetic change is a matter of tempo, focus, and seemingly constant movement. A native of eastern Kentucky, with two grandfathers and a father who worked in the coal industry, Tackett serves as a supervisor on the craft side, managing an array of turbine sites in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, South America, and Europe. “It’s different people, different locations, different cultures,” he says. “All different versions of constant change.”
Tackett’s work with GE Vernova helps keep other, more looming nerves at bay. “It’s like I tell my guys every day at work: ‘The only thing we can control is what we deliver every day,’” he says. “We use new innovative tools that cut down on time, give more accurate readings, and that’s what we deliver on a daily basis. If we take care of the customers, we take care of GE Vernova, and then GE Vernova will take that and steer us in the direction we need to go.”
For Tackett, the energy of change means “constant innovation, new ideas, new technologies, and how do we use these to increase safety and quality not only for us but for our customers.”
Of course, he, Damásio, and Leguizamón-Cabra are more than stars of a recent global ad campaign. They’re members of the global team that puts the Energy of Change into action. Their stories represent the thousands across GE Vernova whose drive toward energy begins with an unflagging optimism. And it’s there wherever they are, from the moment they show up to work.