Who is TMPA

Tony Luna

Originally from Plainview, Texas, Tony has worked at TMPA for more than 26 years. During his tenure he worked utility maintenance, as a certified operator and in his current role as lead operator. He is responsible for operating and controlling the main boiler, turbine generator and all associated auxiliary equipment. Tony oversees critical operations like start-up and shutdown of the unit and is responsible for maintaining unit reliability and performance. As a lead operator, he has a thorough knowledge of all plant systems that monitor and control the production of electricity.

Darrell Reed

Darrell Reed still lives in Iola, where he grew up. After graduating high school in 1978, he worked for a few different contractors on the construction of the Gibbons Creek Plant site from 1979 to 1982. In 1982, Darrel was hired by TMPA as a plant mechanic specializing in pulverizers, axial fans, vertical and horizontal pumps and conveyor systems. During his 26+ year tenure at TMPA, Darrell has worked on virtually every piece of equipment in the plant. In 2005 he earned a promotion to lead mechanic where he planned, scheduled and supervised major plant outage projects, including fan overhauls and precipitator and air heater rebuilds.

Darrell worked on TMPA’s first scrubber, a structure which removed particulate from the plant emissions, until 1996. In 1996 TMPA converted to PRB coal and the scrubber was subsequently decommissioned. Beginning in 2009 TMPA began refurbishing the scrubber to place back online in 2011. The scrubber team recruited Darrell to join their project because of his valuable prior experience and his well-known work ethic. In this position Darrell serves as plant representative for his craft and provides design input, equipment selection, and drawing / specification review for all of the scrubber systems. Darrell enjoys the camaraderie at TMPA and the satisfaction his job provides.

Chuck Mahaffey

Chuck Mahaffey is TMPA's Procurement Manager, responsible for the Agency’s purchasing and warehousing and related policies and procedures. Chuck earned two undergraduate degrees (BBA, BS) in General Business and Procurement and Materials Management from Sam Houston State and the University of Houston. He is a Certified Purchasing Manager (C.P.M. certification) in his professional field. Chuck has also logged in a few sea miles while serving in the U.S. Navy from 1965 through 1969. He moved from Houston to join TMPA in December 1983 as their Procurement Manager, and later was assigned the additional responsibility of handling the Agency’s fuel and rail transportation requirements (1999 – 2007). Chuck describes his job as being a working manager, wearing one hat as a manager and another as a purchasing agent.

Dwayne Bouis

Born in Austin, TX, Dwayne moved to the Bryan area as a teenager. He started his employment with TMPA in 1988 as part of a 30-month apprentice program and currently works as a valve technician and as a project coordinator during outages. Some of his responsibilities include machining, overhauling pressure and safety valves, structural welding, repairing pumps, gear boxes and pulverizers. With his years of plant experience, Dwayne is able to fix or maintain almost anything in the boiler and turbine generation area and is a great asset to the TMPA team.

Bruce Partlow

Bruce Partlow is currently the Chief Operations Engineer providing technical support to Operations and management of large capital projects. Bruce earned a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Louisiana State University and found his way to Gibbons Creek after working at Cajun Electrics’ Big Cajun 2 plant in New Roads, LA. He started his career at TMPA in 1990 as a Performance Engineer focused on optimizing the boiler on lignite. After TMPA's switch to PRB Coal he started the process over. Bruce generally describes his job one of being responsible for everything that’s not working right. After the company’s change to cleaner PRB Coal, Bruce began working on oversight on plant performance, combustion management, turbine and other rotating equipment and management of many of the preventive and predictive management tools. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Texas and holds a level 2 certification in vibration analysis. Bruce’s wife Laurie is one of the best cooks he could find at LSU.