Derek Petch

Derek's 26 year career has been focused on the development and delivery of advanced technology products, 18 years of it in the wind industry.  He joined Boulder Wind Power from Clipper Windpower where he most recently served as Director of Engineering and Product Line Leader for the Clipper 2.5MW turbine platform and before that as Director, Program Management and NREL LWST Contract Manager.  At Clipper he was responsible for managing all aspects of new product introduction programs for the 2.5MW turbine, third-party product certification and customer due diligence.

Prior to Clipper, Derek was Director, Program Management and Director of Engineering for Asyst Technologies a wafer handling robotics and fab automation company serving the semiconductor equipment market.  Derek also led new product development programs in high-performance centrifugation for Beckman Coulter.  Derek also spent 9 years with U.S. Windpower/ Kenetech where he held positions of increasing responsibility from Product Support Engineer to Sr. Director, Engineering.  Project responsibilities ranged from pitch systems development, manufacturing start-up/technology transfer program management for the 100kW turbine technology to development of the first-ever lite-RTM wind turbine blade and new product introduction and certification of the KVs-33, 400kW turbine.  He also co-led the development of the KVS-45m, 500kW low wind speed turbine with responsibility for turbine rotor blade and tower systems.

Prior to U.S. Windpower he served as Chief Engineer for a joint venture turbine service company providing retrofit and maintenance services for two developers in the Altamont Pass.  Derek received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts.