About Us

Founder and CEO Joe Maak has led Pride in growing our clientele to include all four California investor-owned electric utilities, SoCalGas, Facebook, California American Water, and more. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, San Diego Business Journal, and CNBC discussing Pride’s success and remarkable growth. In 1989, Joe moved from Germany to Illinois to get a master’s degree in instructional technology and methodology. He then worked in urban planning and development, eventually moving to San Diego in 1997 to pursue a master’s degree in architecture. In San Diego, Joe oversaw over 150 projects related to capital project management, construction management, and logistics for utilities, colleges, private enterprises, and aerospace. In 2006, Joe became a US citizen. Through mentoring small/DBE companies, providing educational scholarships, and more, Joe leads Pride with an emphasis on giving back to the community to “pay it forward” for the support he had in becoming a US citizen and successful entrepreneur.

Brian Telesmanic, Vice President of Operations at Pride, has over 20 years of experience in all phases of energy infrastructure and facility capital project management. He has extensive experience in the utilities sector, in which he has made major contributions on a portfolio of projects valued at over $3 billion. Brian has successfully managed and executed large and small-scale capital projects, consistently meeting deadlines, budget targets, quality, environmental and safety standards. He has direct involvement and management experience in organizing and managing key stakeholders and resources on multibillion-dollar programs and projects, including the development, planning, design, budgeting, scheduling, safety, quality, procurement, permitting, construction, commissioning, and start-up of capital projects. Brian has successfully managed the delivery of multiple professional service contracts for California IOU clientele in his capacity as Vice President of Operations at Pride, providing guidance and ensuring the overall health of the programs.

Denis Sanford, Vice President of Business Development at Pride, has over 30 years of experience in developing and managing infrastructure capital projects in the utilities, oil, and gas industries, including procurement, planning, design, commissioning, start-up, and electric inspection. He has successfully managed and executed a portfolio of projects valued at over $20 billion, including overhead and underground distribution, transmission, wood-to-steel pole replacement, substation greenfield and rebuilds, battery storage, synchronous condensers, infrastructure relocation, and interconnection installations. Denis is an innovator in R&D and efforts towards improvements in wildfire mitigation initiatives with California utility companies. Denis is also an advisory member for CEATI and an affiliate member of the Electric Utility Industry Sustainable Supply Chain Alliance (EUISSCA), organizations which focus on innovative ways to improve the US electrical infrastructure and the sustainability of its supply chain, respectively.

Mike McShea, Pride’s Director of Project Controls, leads and manages the complete service delivery for Pride’s project controls service contracts for California IOU clientele. Mike has more than 14 years of experience in all aspects of project controls for major utility infrastructure capital programs and projects including EPC projects. Specializing in project scheduling and cost engineering, he has been accountable for schedule development/review, time-phased spread of man-hours, calculation of project progress, productivity, cash-flow generation, project forecasting, internal financials, and schedule performance on numerous engineering and construction projects. Additionally, he has several years’ experience building and developing project controls teams including teams of scheduling, cost engineering, and document controls specialists. Mike’s responsibilities have included staff management/development, reporting and analytics, risk analysis, change order management, estimate preparation, and schedule maintenance.

Valerie Perez has more than 17 years of experience as an administrative and accounting professional spanning the project management, healthcare, and retail industries. She is solution focused, detail oriented, and agile with excellent analytical, organizational, and recordkeeping skills. As Operations Manager, Valerie is responsible for all back-office accounting and operations and leads a matrixed team executing for budgeting, payroll, invoicing, procurement, fleet and logistics all required to facilitate the daily needs of clients, team members, and upper management alike. Her aptitude for creative problem solving enables her to project the most beneficial and appropriate plans of action while streamlining processes and coordinating operations effectively and efficiently.

Shawna Eddington is a cost accounting manager with over 12 years of experience in the accounting field. She leads a team that supports Pride’s utility clientele by reviewing invoices against the client’s current open contract to make sure that the invoices are accurate, contractually compliant, and SOX compliant. Shawna is a goal-oriented employee who has great time management skills and takes pride in her work.

As a project manager and outreach specialist for Pride, Shabnam Karimi is well-versed in communication strategy, public affairs, and community engagement. She has over 15 years of experience with project management, outreach strategy, customer relations, wildfire mitigation outreach, government relations, and community outreach. Having served as a government liaison in multiple previous roles, Shabnam currently supports one of Pride’s electric utility clients as an outreach specialist and government relations liaison. She excels in project management and strategic planning, developing, and implementing project communications plans, coordinating public notifications, managing customer conflict resolution including sensitive customer relations, and coordinating with private entities, tribal, local, state, and federal jurisdictions. Shabnam also spearheads marketing communications efforts for Pride, leveraging her experience in speech writing, public education campaigns, and working with media.

Michele Finkel leads Pride’s proposal center of excellence. She has over 25 years of experience in proposal management, technical editing, and writing. Michele works interdepartmentally to achieve on-time and high-quality delivery, managing proposals under tight deadlines. Her contributions at Pride have included establishing and documenting new procedures, developing tools including macros and templates, improving processes to increase efficiency and to enhance communication, and ensuring that Pride’s proposals are both compliant and responsive to our clients’ needs. Michele’s role at Pride also encompasses technical writing and editing as well as marketing communications.