Our team

Joe Gutierrez

Joe has over 35 years of experience in the natural gas sector and was Co-Founder and Co-CEO of NET Midstream, which formed a partnership with ArcLight Capital Partners, before selling the company to NextEra Energy in 2015. After consulting for NextEra for 2 years, he formed Novi Midstream in order to focus on additional midstream opportunities.

Joe began his career at Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America before moving to Mobil
Oil Corporation in the natural gas marketing division. He received his Doctorate in Business Administration, Dean’s Award, from the University of Houston, and received his MBA with Honors, and Dean’s Award, from the C.T. Bauer College of Business at UH. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees at Texas Christian University. He is also the benefactor of the Gutierrez Energy Management Institute at UH.

Brad Motal

Brad has over 20 years of experience in the midstream industry including commercial responsibilisites across the Natural Gas, NGL’s, and Crude Oil value chains.

Prior to Novi Midstream, Brad served as the Chief Commercial Officer for A3 Energy Midstream where he was responsible for project origination, contract negotiation, and customer relationship management. Before A3 Energy, Brad served as the Senior Vice President of Liquid Hydrocarbons with Enterprise Products Partners having responsibility for Enterprise’s unregulated NGL and Crude oil assets and marketing. During his time with Enterprise, Brad participated in multiple, large-scale infrastructure expansions in the Haynesville and Eagle Ford and lead the multi-billion dollar development of Enterprise’s gas gathering and processing business in the Permian Basin.

Brad also held various commercial responsibilities with El Paso Field Services, Eagle Rock Energy, and PVR Midstream. Brad has a BA in Finance from University of Houston-Downtown.

Leon G. Jackson III (“Trey”)

Trey has over 25 years of experience in the energy sector as a private equity investor and executive in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia. His experience includes midstream, oil & gas, mining, power generation, bulk terminals, renewables, and commodity trading and has served on the boards of private and public companies.

Trey previously served as the Chief Commercial Officer of The Cline Group which developed Foresight Energy from a greenfield development into a public company and developed the Coalspur mine in Canada. Trey also co-founded PBE Mining, a mining technology company with global patents in place and operations in Australia. Prior to transitioning into executive roles, Trey worked in energy private equity.

Trey’s currently serves on the boards of Tacora Resources, Burgundy Diamonds (ASX: BDM), WestMet Ag, Foresight Energy Resources LLC, and PBE Technologies Pty Ltd and formerly served on the boards of Natural Resource Partners LP (NYSE: NRP), Artic Canadian Diamond Corporation, and Material Sciences Corporation.

Trey earned a BSPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.

Michael L. Freeman

Mike has over 40 years of experience in the energy sector primarily in business development roles for natural gas origination and transportation transactions.

He was most recently at NextEra managing its Texas pipelines and expansion opportunities. Prior to this, Mike worked for NET Midstream in a variety of senior commercial roles including managing the right of way acquisition group. Prior to NET, Mike worked with TXU Energy and Trading, Mobil Oil, and as a secundee to Duke Energy where he held various gas trading and origination positions focused on Texas and the Northeast.

Mike began his career as a Landman for Mosbacher Energy after earning a BBA in Management from the University of Texas.

Joe Mills

Joe has over 40 years of experience as a practicing engineer in the U.S. pipeline industry. His career includes leadership roles in the operations, engineering, and project management roles across all phases of pipeline development and operations.

Joe began his career with Delhi Gas Pipeline before moving to M&H Energy Services as a Manager. Joe joined NET in 2006 and led the technical team to diligence M&A and greenfield development opportunities.

Joe holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&I University.

Dilshad Kasmani

Dilshad is a senior executive and attorney with more than 20 years of experience across the energy, infrastructure, and technology sectors.

He has served in executive leadership roles at both public and private companies and previously practiced law at Paul Hastings and Hunton Andrews Kurth. Over the course of his career, he has led or advised on more than $8 billion in transactions and advised boards and management teams on governance and strategic matters.

Dilshad holds a JD from South Texas College of Law and both a BA and an MA in Economics from the University of Houston. He also serves as a Commander in the United States Navy Reserve.