Mocean Energy | Green energy Out of the Blue

At Mocean Energy, our expertise, desire to learn, test and improve are central to the company’s ethos and success. We combine real-world experience with an inclusive, common sense business model to ensure the company adapts quickly and evolves to support its mission. Everyone at Mocean Energy brings energy, enthusiasm and ideas, to ensure that clear, logical thinking and pragmatic flexibility extend beyond our smart computational approach and pioneering product development.

Cameron McNatt

Founder and Managing Director

Cameron is an experienced innovator in ocean energy with a 15-year track record of business success and academic excellence. He earned his Master's in Ocean Engineering from Oregon State University and a PhD from the University of Edinburgh where his thesis examined the cylindrical wave field of floating bodies and resulted in new methods for evaluating wave farms. Prior to his post-graduate studies, Cameron worked as a naval architect writing software for ship simulations. He also has a BSc from Yale University, majoring in electrical engineering, and is a keen sailor who has crossed the Atlantic under sail.

Chris Retzler

Founder and Technical Director

Chris has unique experience in the design, development and deployment of wave energy machines. He migrated from academia to industry, becoming a founding member and Principal Scientist at Pelamis Wave Power. Over its 16-year lifetime, Chris led scientific R&D and testing programmes to resolve engineering challenges, managing numerous projects involving multiple stakeholders and sub-contractors, as Pelamis evolved from concept through to multiple full-scale operational machines. Chris has a PhD in Ocean Engineering from the University of Edinburgh alongside a BA in Energy Systems from Evergreen University, USA and a BA in Chemistry from Oxford.

Ian Crossland

Commercial Director

Ian is an accomplished and results-oriented C-level business executive with 15 years of experience directing overall aspects of technology development and commercialisation within the Oil and Gas sector, and most recently moved into the renewables sector as part of the energy transition with Mocean energy. He has spent the last 10 years within SME technology companies mainly to develop and deploy disruptive technologies to highly conservative and forward-thinking end users. Prior to this, Ian spent the earlier part of his career with Schlumberger working both domestically and internationally.

Jenny Young

Head of Business Operations

Jenny has 20 years of experience in senior operations roles in various technology-focused companies. She has worked across several industries including Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals, Oil and Gas and now Renewables. With a particular interest in putting company strategies into practice and managing the organisation changes required to do this, she is a respected senior manager with expertise in all aspects of running a company including business operations, project management, quality management systems and company administration. Jenny has a first class degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Oxford.

Jay Parle

Head of Engineering

After graduating from The Robert Gordon University in 2003, Jay started his career in oil & gas, where he gained extensive experience in systems engineering and managing subsea projects. Jay has taken products and systems from early development to commissioning and managed teams of experts to deliver on projects in O&G, Nuclear and Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) sectors. Before joining Mocean, Jay worked on a key UK CCS project that involved him investigating alternative renewables power supplies, and this is where his interest in wave energy technology and Mocean started.

Jon Clarke

Head of Projects

Jon is a senior project manager with experience in oil & gas, renewable energy and public events. Before joining Mocean Energy, Jon was Innovation Development Officer for Community Energy Scotland. Previously, Jon has worked as Senior Operations Manager for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Ceremonies, Project Director for environmental arts charity NVA, and Instrument Engineer for Talisman Energy’s Flotta Catchment Area. Jon has an MSc in Renewable Energy Development from Heriot Watt University and a BEng (Hons) in Electronic Engineering with Management Studies from University College London.

Yan Gunawardena

Head of Technical Operations

Yan is a practical problem-solving specialist with long experience in renewables in the marine environment. Prior to joining Mocean Energy, Yan was responsible for testing wave energy company Albatern’s first full-scale Squid 6 prototype across multiple deployment sites on the west coast of Scotland. Yan’s experience also includes working for Edinburgh Designs, overseeing the workflow on the installation of numerous of custom-built wave tanks around the world including FloWave in Edinburgh, the Nantes Wide Tank in France and the Marin Depressurised Wave Basin, Holland.

Gabriel Scarlett

Head of Modelling and Testing

Gabriel has a PhD in Marine Engineering and a MEng in Mechanical Engineering with Renewable Energy, both from the University of Edinburgh. His expertise in fluid mechanics and numerical methods led to the development of specialist software for ocean engineering applications. During his PhD he built a numerical model to investigate the unsteady hydrodynamics of tidal turbine blades during waves and turbulence. These have been used to unravel for the first time the unsteady hydrodynamics along the span of a full-scale tidal turbine blade.

Alfred Cotten

Head of Modelling and Testing

Alfred joins the Mocean team straight from the University of Edinburgh where he has just completed his PhD in Engineering, funded by the EPSRC. Alfred has a background in modelling jointed wave energy converters and has authored a number of posters and papers as well as delivering full presentations at major conferences in offshore energy. He has extensive experience programming in Matlab and Simulink and is familiar with Fortran and C. Plus he can speak and write in Spanish too!

Mark Casson

Financial Manager

Mark is a professional accountant who brings a broad range of experience to the Mocean Energy team. In a career which encompasses the Accountancy, Consulting and IT sectors Mark has held responsibility for international collaborations, IT strategy and major change programmes, alongside financial management and technology consulting. At Mocean Energy Mark oversees all financial aspects of the business including supplier relationship management and has a key role in shaping our overall business strategy.

Cinthia Medrado

QHSE Manager

Cinthia joins the Mocean Energy team with a wealth of experienced gained in process engineering, quality, health and safety and project management roles. Since 2015 she has been working in the ocean energy sector with key positions at test facilities specialists Edinburgh Design and wave energy firm Abatern. Her role will to be ensure that quality and safety are embedded within all processes and procedures at Mocean Energy. Cinthia is fluent in Portuguese and has a BSc in Chemical Engineering and a post-grad degree in Petrochemical Process Engineering, both from the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil.

Andrea Caio

Business Development Manager

Andrea discovered Mocean in 2018, as part of a four-year industrially focused doctoral programme (IDCORE). His research with the company has bridged metrics and physical modelling, attempting to link these to the overall development process. Having grown with the company, he has transitioned to a full-time role combining technical and commercial elements. Previously, Andrea worked in a product development company in Cambridge (UK). He holds a MEng in Engineering Science from Oxford University and is a CELTA-qualified teacher. As a sports and languages enthusiast, he has completed an Ironman 70.3 and worked across 5 countries.

Chris Zealand

Design Engineer

Chris became interested in marine renewables while completing his BSc in Mechanical Engineering Design at the Robert Gordon University. Since graduating in 2007 he has worked as a design engineer with five companies in the oil & gas and renewables sectors, encompassing diverse products ranging from pipeline isolation tools to full-scale wave energy converters. A career highlight was designing and assembling the hinge systems at Pelamis Wave Power. Chris is passionate about pioneering design, detailed engineering and his wider role within the company and beyond, and enjoys the occasional opportunity to get hands on with mechanical assemblies.

Andrew Douglas

Applications & Sales Engineer

Andrew started his career in the oil & gas sector, where he gained experience in subsea tooling, control systems and engineering principles. He brings over nine years of experience in various industries leading and managing product innovation, design and development, taking products from initial concept through to commercialisation. At Mocean Energy, Andrew is leading front-end technical and commercial engagement with customers by presenting them with solutions to their requirements for the delivery of wave energy projects.

Tom Jackson

Operations Supervisor

Tom is a commercial skipper enjoying over 15 years up and down Scotland’s west coast on a variety of vessels. This includes skippering a charter boat- mainly whale watching, wildlife tours and running a passenger ferry with Ardnamurchan Charters. Additionally, he worked on conservation research trips with the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust on their liveaboard research yacht, Silurian. Tom also has 18 years search and rescue experience with HM Coastguard, which he still volunteers with. Directly prior to his role at Mocean Energy as Operations Supervisor he worked for Albatern, a wave energy company, as operation supervisor and main skipper. This included the maintenance and safe deployment of wave energy converters.

Mac Versey

Research Engineer

Since graduating from the University of Edinburgh in 2019 with an MEng in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Mac has been working towards an EngD as part of the industrial centre for offshore renewable energy (IDCORE). Due to complete in 2023, he performs academic research within Mocean Energy and applies the results to support the company. Mac’s research focuses on the application of solar energy to the wave energy converter to act as an alternate power supply. As part of this research, Mac enjoyed developing at sea experiments and getting hands-on with the test rig alongside working with the Mocean team.

Nian Liu

Research Engineer

Nian obtained her MEng degree in Aero-Mechanical Engineering with distinction at the University of Strathclyde in 2021. Her dissertation involved the aerodynamic study of a conceptual low-drag bicycle wheel designed by a local start-up company in Glasgow through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Other projects she has taken part in include power generation and static structural performance study of a micro-wind turbine through CFD and Fluid-Structure Interaction simulations, which she presented at the ANSYS Innovation User Conference in Glasgow. She joined Mocean as part of the IDCORE programme, aiming to provide innovative solutions to the numerical modelling of wave energy converters. You can practise Mandarin with her!

Jamie Tait

Electrical Systems Engineer

Jamie has 15 years of experience on global marine vessels and offshore installations, with a focus on power system equipment. He worked on the installation and commissioning of marine power plant systems prior to undertaking a degree in electrical engineering. On completion of his degree, Jamie pursued his interest in renewable sources of power generation through completing his PhD at the University of Strathclyde, which has a focus on converter-based generation and its integration into the grid.

Rich Walker

Test Engineer

Rich has over 15 years’ experience in the marine energy and offshore sector. He earned his PhD from the University of Exeter and his research informed the creation and ongoing development of offshore weather risk and planning software. His knowledge covers a number of coding languages and techniques which he applies to the analysis of offshore structures, systems and methods. Rich has worked in mooring design and brings on board his extensive scale model testing experience. Rich is also a highly qualified hockey coach, specialising in goalkeeper coaching, and a keen woodworker, having completed projects as diverse as living room furniture and guitars.

Timofei Averkiev

Numerical Modelling Assistant

Timofei is an undergraduate student at the University of Edinburgh studying Mathematics and Physics. He has a background in coding with Python and MATLAB and a great interest in machine learning. With experience in programming and software development, he has joined the Numerical Modelling team following a programming internship at Mocean Energy, creating software tools that help gather and analyse large amounts of wave data. He also regularly assists with various numerical modelling projects, improving the current mathematical algorithms.

Rindai Machokoto

Electrical Engineering Intern

Rindai is a motivated and ambitious individual currently pursuing his MEng in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. With a focus on power electronics and control systems, he is dedicated to finding optimal control methods for power electronic converters. As an intern, Rindai utilizes MATLAB and Simulink to simulate various converter configurations and conducts extensive literature reviews to stay updated on industry advancements. His prior placement at a tidal turbine research facility provided hands-on experience and strengthened his problem-solving skills. With a passion for renewable energy, Rindai envisions making significant contributions to the field in the future.