Mr. Schafer received his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Denver in 2001 and his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis in power systems engineering in May 2010.

Prior to joining NEI, Mr. Schafer served in the U.S. Navy as an aviation electrician, safety of flight inspector and air crewman for warship-based rotary wing aircraft. Mr. Schafer served aboard ship and provided technical and flight support during Persian Gulf oil tanker escorts and anti-submarine warfare missions. He received several awards for technical knowledge, performance and exemplary conduct.  At Stone & Webster Engineering Corp., Mr. Schafer designed electrical systems for nuclear spent-fuel storage installations and combined cycle natural gas-fired power plants.

Since joining NEI, Mr. Schafer has engineering, design and management  experience on substations  ranging from 4.16kV to 138kV, including ground grid design, lightning protection, battery system sizing, protective relay schemes, equipment specifications, testing, commissioning and troubleshooting. He also has extensive design and commissioning experience for various types of generating plants. Thomas has extensive experience with programming and testing various protection relays including Schweitzer, Beckwith, Basler and GE relays. He has performed numerous system studies including protection assessments, arc-flash, power flow, short-circuit, motor-starting and relay and circuit breaker coordination. Thomas is familiar with the National Electric Code and California Electric Rule 21.