Meet the executive managers of Riverside Public Utilities.
David A. Garcia
General Manager | [email protected]
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David A. Garcia is the General Manager for Riverside Public Utilities. His areas of responsibilities include water design engineering, planning, water resources, operations, maintenance and construction activities, and State & Federal water regulatory compliance. David has over 30 years of water utility experience throughout the Santa Ana River Watershed. He last served as the Director of Water Operations for Eastern Municipal Water District and, previously, in various management roles, including Water Operations Manager for Riverside Public Utilities.
David received his bachelor’s degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of California, Riverside and a Master’s Degree in Environmental Policy and Planning from California State University, Fullerton. He is also certified as a Grade 5 Water Treatment and Distribution Operator by the California State Water Resources Control Board.
Brian Seinturier
Assistant General Manager | Finance and Administration | [email protected]
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Brian Seinturier is the Assistant General Manager, Finance and Administration for Riverside Public Utilities. Brian has worked for Riverside Public Utilities since July 2007. His current areas of responsibility include financial management, operating and capital budgets, customer service, field services, utility business systems, and utility billing.
Brian received his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Accounting, from the University of California, Riverside and is a Certified Public Accountant. He has over 27 years of experience in public sector accounting and finance.
Brian has provided leadership and guidance throughout his career and is a dedicated public servant who strives for excellence and transparency between the community and the city.
Daniel Honeyfield
Assistant General Manager | Energy Delivery | [email protected]
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Daniel Honeyfield was named the Assistant General Manager, Energy Delivery of Riverside Public Utilities (RPU) in August 2022. His areas of responsibilities include line construction and maintenance, substation construction and maintenance, meter shop, dispatch, SCADA operations, customer engineering, electric capital projects, substation and communication engineering, system enhancements and planning, and regulatory compliance related to the operation of the electric distribution and protection activities under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and California Public Utilities Commission.
Daniel has worked in the utilities industry for most of his 18-year career. Starting in 2004, he held the position of a telecom engineer with Verizon and later joined Jacobs Engineering as a consult electrical engineer in the petrochemical industry. From 2007 to 2015 Daniel held various engineering roles and positions with Riverside Public Utilities including Senior Electric Engineer within the Electric System Planning division. Thereafter, Daniel joined Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) for 7 years and served as the Engineering Manager of Transmission & Distribution Maintenance Planning. At SMUD he oversaw the development of yearly Operation & Maintenance (O&M) and capital plans for all SMUD-owned substations, transmission, and distribution lines to ensure SMUD’s reliability targets were met and in compliance with Federal & State regulations.
Daniel received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration, with emphasis in Technology Management, from the University of Phoenix. He also holds a Professional Engineering license with the state of California.
Dr. Scott M. Lesch
Assistant General Manager | Power Resources | [email protected]
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Dr. Scott M. Lesch is the Assistant General Manager, Power Resources for Riverside Public Utilities. His areas of responsibility currently include resource planning, market operations and analytics, power generation, energy and capacity contracts, joint projects, and regulatory compliance relating to wholesale energy, capacity, and transmission activities under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, California Independent System Operator, California Energy Commission and North American Electric Reliability Corporation.
Scott has worked for Riverside Public Utilities since 2009, when he began his career in the Power Resources Division as a Utility Senior Resource Analyst. Scott was promoted to a Utility Principal Resource Analyst in 2012 and became the Manager of the Resource Planning unit in 2014. During his tenure in the Power Resources Division, Scott has overseen the Divisions adoption of sophisticated production cost modeling, load forecasting, resource budgeting, and market analytics software platforms. Scott has also served as the Manager of the Divisions Technology Integration unit since 2019, as an Interim Contracts & Projects Manager in 2023, and as the lead technical author for the Riverside Public Utilities 2014, 2018, and 2023 Integrated Resource Plans.
Scott received his Doctorite (Ph.D) degree in Applied Statistics from the University of California, Riverside, and his Master’s degree in Statistics from Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to joining Riverside Public Utilities in 2009, Scott worked for 21 years at the University of California Riverside campus as an Environmental Statistician (in the Department of Environmental Science) and as a Principal Consulting Statistician (in the Department of Statistics).
Tracy Sato
Assistant General Manager | Strategic Initiatives | [email protected]
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Tracy Sato is an Assistant General Manager leading the Strategic Initiatives Division at Riverside Public Utilities. She also provides support for citywide sustainability efforts. She and her team are responsible for projects that focus on emerging technologies and challenges facing the electric utility, including how the electric utility will need to adapt because of climate change and the needs to support decarbonization – such as transportation electrification, hydrogen generation and uses for transportation and power generation, renewable energy, and much more. She also oversees RPU’s legislative and regulatory affairs and government relations. Tracy’s work crosses all utility divisions including both water and electric planning, generation, engineering, and field.
Tracy has over 15 years of professional and technical experience as an urban planner, including several years that included GIS programming and data management. As an urban planner, she led projects involving regional planning, demographic forecasting, compliance reporting, census liaison as well as focusing on affordable housing and compliance. She transitioned to the electric utility industry about 13 years ago and has worked as an electric utility professional with a focus on power resources, climate change and equity in publicly owned electric utilities. She managed compliance programs for Cap-and-Trade compliance and Low Carbon Fuel Standard programming. Since starting at RPU in August 2017, Tracy launched RPU’s participation in the Low Carbon Fuel Standard Program, has led the Customer Engagement team and designed customer programs to help customers impacted by COVID-19, and launched both a new working group, Sustainability and Energy Solutions as well as the new Division, Strategic Initiatives.
Tracy received a Bachelor of Science in Urban and Regional Planning from Cal Poly, Pomona and a Master’s of Urban and Regional Planning with a specialization in Environmental Planning from Virginia Tech.