January 20-22, 2026 | SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center 

Speakers

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Garry Waggoner

Garry Waggoner

Vice President, Generation Services - Fossil and Renewables Generation, Vistra

Garry Waggoner is the Vice President of Generation Services for Vistra’s Fossil, Renewables, and Battery Operations. Vistra’s wholesale business activities include nuclear, fossil, renewables, and BESS generation, along with mining, wholesale marketing and trading, and development operations.

Waggoner joined the company in 1982 and has 43 years of fossil generation and corporate operations, maintenance, reliability, and engineering experience. In his current role, he leads an organization of more than 100 multidisciplined engineers and technical specialists, providing operational risk-based expertise to support the safe and reliable

operation of the extended fossil, renewables, and battery generation fleet, as well as providing support for corporate strategic and development engineering needs.

In his corporate roles, Waggoner has been responsible for fleet engineering, maintenance, and reliability services. These include development and implementation of Vistra’s centralized fleet monitoring and diagnostic Power Optimization Center, leading the corporate transition from mainframe CMMS to Maximo EAM, development and implementation of the fossil generation boiler and machinery program for managing equipment hazard risk based on the nuclear power NEIL program, and development and implementation of Vistra’s fossil reliability process based on INPO AP-913 and EPRI’s PRO processes.

Waggoner also led the extension of Vistra’s maintenance, reliability, and engineering standards and processes across the extended fleet following the merger with Dynegy in 2018. Waggoner chairs the Vistra Executive Safety Committee, serves as director for Vistra’s Emergency Operations Center, and serves on the EPRI Generation Sector Council.

Prior to his corporate responsibilities, Waggoner worked in nine fossil generation plants across Texas in various operations, maintenance, engineering, and leadership roles.

Waggoner holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Southern Methodist University and is a registered professional engineer in Texas. He is married with four children and one grandson, and he enjoys travel with his wife Kathy.

Sessions
"This is my first year at POWERGEN and so far I can just say, wow, this event is huge. I never thought I would have access to so many different vendors and so many different experts in the energy industry by coming to an event like this."
Caitlyn Watkins
Cleco
"It's my first time at POWERGEN. I'm having a great time walking around and seeing all of the booths in the exhibit hall and everything that everybody's trying to sell me, as well as a lot of very useful technical presentations. My particular favorite has been the carbon capture track, but they've all been good that I've attended so far."
Janelle Dana
Entergy
"Hi, I’m Chad Lemoine with Entergy... here as a corrective actions program specialist. It’s my first time at POWERGEN, so it’s been great for networking. I’ve met personnel at our plants I’d only talked to on the phone, so that face-to-face interaction has been really good. I’ve enjoyed meeting new people, learning about what they do, and how it interacts with my work... Overall, it's been a really good time." 
Chad Lemoine
Entergy
"I think my favorite part of the conference has been essentially the Smarter Power Plant Track. There's been a lot of good [takeaways] for us because our plans are quite old, so there's a lot of manual readings and things, but me being the IT generation, I think it could be done better. So having a lot of these [takeaways] from companies who have [accomplished what] we are wanting to do is great. It's been really eye opening networking with all of the exhibitors [as well]. It's my first time here, but I don’t think it's going to be my last."
Jonathan Hellborg
Svensk Kraftreserv
“Nel’s chosen to sponsor and be part of POWERGEN because it's one of the more important shows in the hydrogen market, also the power generation market in general. Over the years, we've seen a shift in POWERGEN from more traditional power generation to a greater presence with renewables, and now with hydrogen, as an energy source, moving into the future.” 
Chris Van Name
Nel Hydrogen
“We're here today at the conference because I believe this is the largest power generation conference there is in the country. One, it's a way to get our name out and that's why we're sponsoring it. But two, it's also a great way to connect with other groups, other organizations and, you know, meet the people who are actually important for our own progression as a company.” 
James Walker
Nano Nuclear Energy, Inc
“We come to POWERGEN every year because it's a great show you can make great contacts in the renewable space, great contacts in the data center space, great contacts in the commercial industrial space. So that's why we're here every year. You should be here too.”
David D’Escoto
Maddox Industrial Transformer