NEWS

The NM SMART Grid Center is pleased to announce the most recent faculty hire for the project: Frank Currie, who is leading development of the Smart- and Micro-grid Training Center at Santa Fe Community College (SFCC). Within this role, Frank will spearhead development of the Distributed Energy Systems Program, an AAS and AS degree program specializing in smart grid and microgrid systems technician training.

“I am excited to build the program I wish had existed when I started school,” Frank said.

Most recently, Frank worked as an R&D engineer in the Energy Storage Technologies and Systems group at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). There he supported the design and construction of a groundbreaking data acquisition system for the new SNL Storage Controls and Analytics Lab and served as SNL project lead for a collaborative SFCC training center project. In addition to his prior engineering experience, Frank has taught at secondary institutions and community colleges. Before working for SNL, Frank worked as adjunct faculty at SFCC. This background has helped Frank make an easy transition into his role at SFCC.

Over the course of his career, Frank has also worked in industrial automation, electric utility systems planning, solar and wind project development, and on the implementation side of energy storage and microgrids. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State and will soon possess an MS in the same field from NMSU.

Throughout program and curriculum development and deployment, SFCC will make courses available online to extend the reach of course material and protect against duplication of effort and resources, while increasing statewide educational capacity.

Welcome to the team Frank!