Houston energy, innovation leader dies after hard-fought battle with cancer

'onward'

Scott Gale, executive director for Halliburton Labs, has died, leaving behind a legacy of innovation, collaboration, and curiosity. Photo via Rice University

Houston energy and innovation leader Scott Gale died on September 24 after a years-long fight with cancer. He was 40 years old.

Gale was the inaugural executive director for Halliburton Labs, which launched in 2020. Prior to that role, he lead global strategy initiatives for Halliburton. A Brigham Young University graduate, he received his MBA from Rice University in 2019, where he co-founded the Jones Student Association for Executives. After his graduation, he served on the the Rice Business Alumni Association Board and the Energy Advisory Board for the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator.

"Scott made an impact with his incredible kindness, energy, and talent," Dale Winger, managing director at Halliburton Labs, tells InnovationMap. "Scott was passionate about his family, his friends, his community, and his work. He provided incredible creativity and drive to bring Halliburton Labs to life within Halliburton, and despite a terrible cancer diagnosis, Scott continued to collaborate and build connections that launched the inaugural Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week. Work and play were always fun with Scott. His generosity and dedication to strengthen the Houston innovation ecosystem will be missed, yet his legacy endures.”

Gale was also a voice actor and the co-host of two podcasts: Rice University's Owl Have You Know Podcast, which shares experiences of Rice's business community, and the Curiosity podcast, which explored optimism and curiosity with guests and co-host Brad Rossacci.

"A rebellious optimist at his core, Scott believed we need a biased toward action, a mission focused belief system, and a healthy dose of rebellion for good measure," Rossacci, who serves as creative director at Accenture, says. "Carving his own path in the universe, Scott discovered his life’s work and unceasingly committed himself to helping humanity deepen their curiosity, building connective tissue across society, and advancing the future of energy on the shoulders of the giants who came before him. Ultimately, fulfilling his infinite ambitions and creating an echo that will reverberate in the cosmos for eternity."

One month ago, he stepped away from his role at Halliburton Labs, sharing his cancer journey in a message shared on LinkedIn. In the post, he encouraged his whole community to "go out and live a life that echoes," and ended with "onward," something Gale regularly imparted when he spoke on progress within energy and innovation.

Earlier this month during the Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week, which Gale was instrumental in creating but unable to attend due to the progression of his illness, the Energy Tech Nexus awarded its Nexus Community Award to Gale, and his father, Andrew Gale, accepted the award on his behalf.

"He is very focused on the community in Houston and the tech industry," Andrew Gale said about his son when accepting the award, "he feels so honored to be given the opportunity to be able to have an influence."

In addition to his father and his mother, JoAnna, Scott is survived by his wife of 18 years, Nicole, and their four children, as well as his seven siblings — Siara, Shanna, Spencer, Seth, Shalya, Sam, and Shane. In honor of his brother, Sam launched a GoFundMe campaign for his nieces and nephew's education, and donations are currently being accepted.

In his obituary, his family shared something Scott regularly said as he battled his cancer with countless hospital visits and experimental treatments: “I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure if you die, the cancer dies at the same time. That’s not a loss. That’s a draw.”

Earlier this year, he joined the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week and call for collaboration within the ecosystem.


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Introducing: Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week, a collaborative initiative that will showcase Houston's ecosystem of energy tech innovators. Photo via Getty Images

Houston organizations team up to bring inaugural climate startup week

mark your calendars

Three organizations are teaming up to put on a week of programming and events focused on energy and climate startups.

Greentown Labs, Halliburton Labs, and the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship have announced Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week 2024 taking place September 9 to 13.

“These organizations will execute events that will serve as a launching pad for an Energy and Climate Startup Week in Houston, showcasing the city as a national hub for the energy future,” Brad Burke, executive director of the Rice Alliance, says in the release. “We welcome the community to bring other energy and climate events to the week, which we’ll cross-promote as the dates approach.”

The week will assemble investors, industry leaders, and startups from across the energy industry and from around the world to showcase Houston's growing sustainable, low-carbon energy future.

The initiative is in collaboration with the Houston Energy Transition Initiative, or HETI, an initiative of the Greater Houston Partnership, as well as Activate, Digital Wildcatters, Renewable Energy Alliance Houston, and TEX-E.

“As the energy capital and one of the most diverse cities in the world, Houston stands as a center point for these solutions. The region is welcoming, diverse and has the know-how to play a critical role in building an energy abundant, low-carbon future," Jane Stricker, executive director of HETI and senior vice president at GHP, says in the release. "We welcome all who want to be part of the solution to join for this exciting, inaugural week of events.”

Attendees can expect tech and startup showcases, panels, pitches, discussions, and networking events to be hosted across Houston and at the Ion, Rice's innovation hub in Midtown. More details on the events will be added to the Ion's website as they become available.

“We look forward to the opportunity to highlight talented founders and connect them with investors, industry practitioners and university resources to help accelerate energy innovation,” Dale Winger, managing director of Halliburton Labs, says in the release. “The collaboration to launch Energy and Climate Startup Week reflects how Houston works together to scale solutions."

Halliburton has named its latest cohort. Photo via Getty Images

7 energy startups tapped for Houston incubator program

ready to grow

Seven companies from around the world have been invited to join Halliburton Labs, the company announced today.

Halliburton Labs is an incubator program that helps early-stage energy tech companies through connections, access to facilities, and more.

"We are pleased to welcome these promising energy startups and provide customized support to help them achieve their specific priorities, accelerate commercialization, and increase valuation," says Dale Winger, managing director of the program, in a news release. "Our experienced practitioners and network will help these companies use their time and capital efficiently."

The next Halliburton Labs Finalists Pitch Day, which will feature the ongoing cohort, is planned for Thursday, March 14, in New Orleans in coordination with New Orleans Entrepreneur Week and 3rd Coast Venture Summit. Applications for the program are open until Friday, February 9.

The newest additions to Halliburton Labs are as follows.

One of three Israel-based companies in the cohort, Airovation Technologies is advancing carbon capture and utilization solutions through helping hard-to-abate industries that achieve emissions reduction targets through its proprietary carbon mineralization technology. Through transforming point-source CO2 emissions into circular chemicals and building materials, Airovation is developing a scalable pathway for industrial emitters to decarbonize with multiple revenue streams.

“Industrial emitters are seeking economic ways to decarbonize,” Marat Maayan, founder and CEO at Airovation Technologies, says. “We are excited to accelerate our commercialization in the United States with Halliburton Labs, leveraging their expertise, capabilities and network."

Ayrton Energy, based in Calgary, is developing liquid organic hydrogen carrier storage technology to enable the large-scale, efficient transportation of hydrogen over extended distances without hydrogen loss and pipeline corrosion. This storage technology provides a high-density hydrogen storage medium without the need for cryogenics or high-pressure systems, which differs from the existing technology out there. This improves the safety and efficiency of hydrogen storage while enabling the use of existing fuel infrastructure for transportation, including tanks, transport trucks, and pipelines.

“Our mission is to enable hydrogen adoption by solving the key challenges in hydrogen storage and transportation,” Ayrton CEO Natasha Kostenuk says.

Cache Energy, based out of the University of Illinois Research Park, is developing a new long duration energy storage solution, which scales to interseasonal durations, through a low-cost solid fuel. Once charged, the storage material stores energy at room temperature, with near zero loss in time and can be safely stored and transported anywhere energy is needed.

“We are strong believers of leveraging existing infrastructure and expertise to fast track decarbonization goals,” Arpit Dwivedi, founder and, says CEO of Cache Energy. “We look forward to this collaboration and learning from Halliburton's manufacturing and operational expertise, as we scale our technology.”

From Be'er Sheva City in Israel, CENS develops enhanced dry dispersion technology based on dry-treated carbon nanotubes that enable high energy density, high power, and outstanding cycle performance in Li-ion batteries. The technology is differentiated because it can be applied to any type of lithim-ion battery and its implementation can be seamlessly integrated into the production line.

“Our goal is to develop ground-breaking technologies that will become disruptive technologies to market at a massive scale,” says CEO Moshe Johary. “With the help and vast experience of Halliburton Labs' team, we could achieve advancements in production capabilities while extending our footprint in the market.”

Casper, Wyoming-based Disa Technologiesprovides solutions to the mining and remediation industries. Disa utilizes patented minerals liberation technology to more efficiently isolate target minerals and mitigate environmental impacts to its users. Disa platforms treat a wide array of critical minerals that are essential to the economy and our way of life.

“We are excited to have Halliburton's support as we scale-up our technology and deliver innovative minerals processing solutions that disrupt industry best practices, enhance global resource utilization, and benefit the environment and the communities we serve," Greyson Buckingham, Disa's CEO and president, says.

Marel Power Solutions, headquartered from Michigan, is innovating electrification through its novel powerstack technology. These materials-efficient, quickly deployable, and scalable power-stacks, encapsulating advanced cooling technology, redefine power conversion in mobility, industrial, and renewables spaces.

“We're thrilled to contribute to global climate sustainability. Our collaboration with Halliburton will accelerate the electrification transition across industries. Marel's technology not only maximizes heat evacuation from densely packed power semiconductors but, more importantly, offers substantial savings in cost, weight, size, and time, making it transformative in the evolving landscape of electrification,” Marel CEO Amrit Vivekanand says.

And lastly, XtraLit is an Israeli company that develops a technology for direct lithium extraction from brines. The technology enables efficient and economically justified processing of brines even with relatively low lithium concentrations. Application of the extraction technology will allow mineral providers to unlock new significant sources of lithium that are critical to meet growing demand.

“Oil and gas industry produced waters might become a substantial resource for lithium production,” says XtraLit CEO, Simon Litsyn. “XtraLit will cooperate with Halliburton on optimization of produced water treatment for further increasing the efficiency of the lithium extraction process.”

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Halliburton Labs has added three energy tech startups to its program. Photo via Getty Images

Houston energy tech accelerator names 3 startups, announces first out-of-state pitch day

onboarding biz

Halliburton Labs has announced its latest cohort — and revealed details about its next pitch day.

The program, housed at Halliburton's facilities in Houston, added FuelX, LiNa Energy, and Solaires Entreprises to the clean energy accelerator. The companies will receive support from mentors from within Halliburton's workforce and network, as well as go through the accelerator's programming.

“We’re excited to support FuelX, LiNa Energy, and Solaires with the tools they need to achieve their goals,” says Halliburton Labs Managing Director Dale Winger in a news release. “Each participant company receives customized support to enable efficient use of their time and capital by engaging Halliburton’s scaling experience and capabilities.”

The next Halliburton Labs will not take place in Houston. The program is going on the road to host its next Halliburton Labs Finalists Pitch Day on Thursday, September 21, in Denver. The event will be a part of the inaugural Energy Tech Day at Denver Startup Week and will include pitches from innovative, early-stage energy tech companies.

FuelX

FuelX, which has a production plant in the Houston area, manufactures hydrogen storage materials and fuel cell power systems with alane solid state hydrogen fuel.

“Participation in the Halliburton Labs program accelerates our ability to scale to meet existing military and commercial project milestones,” says Greg Jarvie, co-founder and CEO of FuelX.

LiNa Energy

Headquartered in Lancaster, England, LiNa Energy develops and provides low-cost, solid-state sodium batteries.

"LiNa is delighted to be selected for Halliburton Labs – the support and investment will accelerate LiNa's growth on a scale found only in the energy industry,” says Chief Commercial Officer Will Tope. “Halliburton Labs is a cornerstone of our strategy, as we scale up manufacturing to deliver bigger energy storage systems to our partners around the world."

Solaires Entreprises

Solaires Entreprises, based in Victoria, British Columbia, is developing lightweight, flexible, efficient, and transparent solar cells.

“Our company is purpose-driven toward what our technology can achieve: a more affordable and reliable alternative within solar energy and photovoltaics and where renewables become a bigger portion of the world power mix,” says Solaires Co-founder and Chief Science Officer Sahar Sam.

Halliburton Labs has announced the addition of three clean energy tech companies. Photo courtesy of Halliburton

Houston energy innovation incubator adds 3 startups to program

new kids on the block

Halliburton has again added a handful of energy tech startups to its Houston-based incubator.

Three companies — Matrix Sensors, Renew Power Systems, and SunGreenH2 — have joined Halliburton Labs as its newest clean energy participants.

“Companies across the energy landscape are interested in scalable innovations that improve the cost, reliability, and sustainability of energy,” says Managing Director Dale Winger in the news release. “Our tailored program combines expert support, access to a global network, and the physical resources for participants to scale. We’re excited to help these companies accelerate their market traction.”

Halliburton, a provider of energy equipment and services, launched Halliburton Labs in 2020. Last September was the incubator's last cohort addition. The next Halliburton Labs Finalists Pitch Day is Friday, January 27, at the Ion. The event will include pitches from 10 innovative, early-stage energy tech companies. Registration is open for the event.

Here are details, according to Halliburton, about the three new startups at the incubator.

Matrix Sensors

Using a new class of gas-adsorbing materials known as metal-organic frameworks to develop the world’s first quantitative gas sensor on a chip, Matrix Sensors has created a touch-free technology that enables advancements in sensor size, power, cost, and performance to address limitations of current gas sensor technologies, which require manual calibration every six months. The company is based in San Diego, California.

“With Halliburton’s global reach, we can apply our technology to some of the biggest problems facing the energy sector today, including CO2 sensors for energy efficient buildings and methane sensors for leak detection,” says Matrix Sensors CEO Steve Yamamoto in the release.

Renew Power Systems

RPSi, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a clean-tech company that develops hardware and software solutions that enable flexible and sustainable grid infrastructure. RPSi uses power electronics to connect renewable energy resources, such as wind and solar, with each other and the grid.

“Our mission is to help change the way the world generates and distributes energy,” says CEO Zach Emond in the release. “With RPSi technology, a diverse range of domestic and global communities will benefit from the acceleration of renewable energy resources that work with new and existing grid infrastructure and improve access to affordable, sustainable, and resilient electricity.”

SunGreenH2

Singapore-based SunGreenH2 builds high-performance hardware for electrolyzer cells, stacks, and systems that increase hydrogen production, decrease energy use, and reduce platinum group metals use. The company supplies hardware components for alkaline and proton-exchange membrane electrolyzers. Its modular, high-efficiency anion exchange membrane (AEM) electrolyzer stack, which is being commercialized, uses renewable power to produce low-cost green hydrogen for industries, transport, and energy storage.

“We are excited to unlock the future of green hydrogen production. With the help of Halliburton’s engineering and manufacturing expertise, we plan to commercialize and roll out our product in major international markets,” says Tulika Raj, co-founder and CEO of the company, in the release.

Halliburton Labs has announced its next set of clean energy tech companies. Photo courtesy of Halliburton

Houston cleantech incubator adds 3 startups in its latest cohort

now accelerating

Three climatetech companies will be joining Halliburton Labs, a Houston-based energy transition incubator.

Chemergy, EVA, and Novamera will be joining Halliburton Labs, the company announced last week. The three startups will receive technical support, access to Halliburton's global connections, and more from the program.

“We are excited to help accelerate three innovative companies that emerged from our recent Finalists Pitch Day,” says Dale Winger, managing director of Halliburton Labs, in a news release. “We will work closely with these founders and their teams to achieve strategic, operational, and financial milestones with the most efficient use of their time and capital."

Halliburton Labs launched in the summer of 2020, and now has over a dozen companies working on climatetech solutions in its portfolio. Applications are now open for the next cohort on the Halliburton Labs website and are due by April 22, for the May 20 Finalists Pitch Day.

"In less than two years, we've established productive new relationships with fifteen companies scaling solutions across a breadth of markets to expand our understanding of new value chains,” Winger continues.

Here's a little more about the three new additions to the program.

Chemergy 

Miami-based Chemergy has created a patented HyBrTec process is designed to convert wet organic and plastic wastes into green hydrogen, thereby eliminating the liability and consequences of the wastes by converting them into fuel.

“We see a great opportunity to collaborate with Halliburton Labs' industrial experience to ensure our systems can be installed and operated safely in communities to solve waste disposal issues, improve resiliency and sustainability, and produce cleaner fuel locally,” says Melahn Parker, president of Chemergy.

EVA 

EVA, a New York headquartered company with a presence on four continents, is increasing scalability for the drone industry with its ground infrastructure and operating system solutions that help customers perform inspections, make deliveries, recharge, and monitor remote operations without local manpower.

“The Halliburton Labs ‘scalerator' model comes at the right time for EVA as we accelerate commercialization," says Olivier Le Lann, founder and CEO. "We're excited about the ways Halliburton's global market and industrial expertise will accelerate our trajectory."

Novamera 

Canadian company Novamera has developed proprietary navigation tools and software that enables climate smart, surgical mining and unlocks value in certain mineral deposits found worldwide that are otherwise uneconomic due to their small scale and geometry.

“We are pleased to join Halliburton Labs' accelerator program," says Novamera Co-founder and CEO Dustin Angelo in a news release. "Their engineering expertise and business experience will help us accelerate the development of our technology and scale our business to bring a more sustainable method of mining to the world.”

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2 Houston startups win big at SXSW 2025 pitch competition

winner, winner

Houston had a strong showing at this week's SXSW Pitch showcase in Austin, with two local startups claiming top prizes in their respective categories.

Little Place Labs, a Houston space data startup, won the Security, GovTech & Space competition. Clean-tech company Helix Earth, which spun out of Rice University and was incubated at Greentown Labs, won in the Smart Cities, Transportation & Sustainability contest.

As one of SWSX's marquee events, held March 8-10, the pitch competition featured 45 finalists, selected from 589 applicants, in nine categories.

"We faced impressive competition from a well-chosen set of finalists, and we're honored to be chosen as the winners. One of the judges even commented, ‘Who knew you could make air conditioning sexy,’” Brad Husick, Helix's co-founder and chief business officer, said in a release.

Helix Earth was launched in 2022 and is known for its space capsule air filtration system that was co-developed for NASA. The commercial air conditioner add-on technology, now in a pilot phase, has been used to retrofit HVAC systems for commercial buildings and can save up to 50 percent of the net energy, cutting down on emissions and operating costs, according to the company. Its co-founder and CEO Rawand Rasheed was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Energy and Green Tech list for 2025.

“This win validates our mission to drive sustainable innovation in commercial air conditioning and beyond. We are excited about the future of Helix Earth and the impact we will have in reducing energy consumption and emissions," Rasheed said in a statement.

Little Place Labs echoed that sentiment with a post on LinkedIn celebrating the win.

"This all started with a simple mission: To deliver real-time space insights to help first responders, mission planners, and decision-makers act before problems arise,” the post read. "Today, that mission feels even stronger."

The company uses advanced AI and machine learning to deliver near-real-time space analytics for both ground and space-based applications. Its software aims to help first responders, mission planners and decision-makers detect anomalies and make informed decisions quickly. It was co-founded in 2020 at Oxford by Houstonian and CEO Bosco Lai and Gaurav Bajaj and participated in the 2023 AWS Space Accelerator.

Two other Houston companies were selected as finalists:

  • Trez, a Latino-focused fintech company that uses AI and voice-command payroll through WhatsApp to provide culturally relevant payroll and streamline financial operations for Latino business owners.
  • Tempesst Droneworx, a veteran-owned software company that's Harbinger software providing real-time contextual intelligence for early warning detection, reducing time to decision and speeding time to action.

Jesse Martinez, founder of invincible, and Anu Puvvada of KPMG were two judges representing Houston.

According to SXSW, 647 companies have participated in SXSW Pitch over the years, with over 93 percent receiving funding and acquisitions totaling nearly $23.2 billion. See the full list of 2025 winners here.

A legacy of industrial technology excellence: UTSI International turns 40

Cheers to 40 Years

As UTSI International celebrates its 40th anniversary, president and CEO Shaun Six reflects on the company's history, achievements, and exciting future.

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In March 1985, Dan Nagala and a few friends took a risk, leaving their full-time jobs to pursue their passion and start their own company.

They founded UTSI Internationalamidst groundbreaking advancements in Industrial Control Systems and SCADA technology, revolutionizing remote operations for critical infrastructure. From the start, UTSI has been at the forefront of OT innovation and integration — a legacy we proudly carry forward today.

The legacy of Dan Nagala

Dan Nagala’s 50-plus-year career is too vast to cover every accomplishment, but if you’ve ever heard the phrase “Houston, we have a problem” in a movie, those screens in the control room and the logic causing the “blinky lights” to alert the operators, you’ve seen some of his work. Dan and his team ultimately paved the way for field communications to detect and communicate leaks on pipelines and give operators in remote locations situational awareness, expanding their ability to safely monitor and control their operations.

This capability was requested early on in the first pipeline control rooms, leading to UTSI’s first check-in 1985 (which I proudly have framed on my bookshelf). The protocols to communicate and do advanced calculations — which many would be tempted to call AI today — for the purpose of monitoring and control, was created from this group of enthusiasts who open sourced it and allowed it to proliferate, leading to over 80 percent of all critical infrastructure in the world now utilizing a variant thereof.

Given the novelty of the technology and the experience of UTSI, having implemented control systems and automation for pipelines in over 22 countries, Dan was asked to collaborate with industry experts, creating the first API leak detection and control room management standards for the American Petroleum Institute. These would later become regulation under PHMSA, DoT, and TSA, placing UTSI as the go-to experts in compliance in addition to their traditional expertise.

UTSI has delivered for the world’s largest infrastructure owners in multiple critical infrastructure sectors, like mining, water/wastewater, oil and gas, green energy, transportation authorities, etc. We have also done AI and cybersecurity, in addition to SCADA and ICS work for the DoD and DoE.

Strength in partners

I joined UTSI in 2022 as vice president, working under Dan, with the goal of gradually stepping into leadership. In 2023, I became CEO, president, and majority shareholder. While no one can truly fill Dan’s shoes alone, we’ve focused on strengthening our team, partnerships, and capabilities to continue UTSI’s legacy of excellence.

One of our first strategic partnerships was with Tory Tech, a leading API-compliant Control Room Management tool. UTSI has worked as integrators with Tory Tech for years and Dan worked as a CRM compliance advisor for them in the U.S. while they were setting up their headquarters in Houston. In 2024 we made it an official partnership, becoming a preferred integrator and focusing our team on training and development in the MaCRoM (Master Control Room Management) tool.

We've also made significant investments in our OT cybersecurity capabilities, expanding our team and partnering with industry leaders like Dennis Parker, Derrik Oates, Nozomi Networks, Fortinet, and Schneider Electric. These strategic moves ensure we deliver top-tier expertise, products, and solutions to better serve our customers.

Our partnership with ThreatGEN and the utilization of their AI-driven “AutoTableTop” tool not only utilizes our experience with TSA guidelines, but adds an element of reality that the traditional methods are lacking, making these engagements more interactive and beneficial for operators who are required to participate annually.

In 2024, UTSI also invested heavily in AI and Data Science by acquiring Houston-based AI company Pandata Tech and leveraging their Data-Quality-Methodology (DQM), Leak Geek, and time-series data science expertise to solve industry specific problems.

Moving up – in and around Houston

Building on our recent successes, we strategically relocated our office to the Netrality building (1301 Fannin St.), bringing us closer to clients and partners, while getting access to a Tier 3 Data Center with an uninterrupted 40-year power record.

Netrality is a SOC2-compliant facility with seven points of detection from the street to our server, including biometric screening. Our very own Roberto deLeon has architected our upgraded servers using the Purdue model as a basis of design while leveraging our relationship with Fortinet to standardize our hardware and software to the highest standards. We practice what we preach — every architecture, framework, and hardware recommendation we make is not just advised but actively implemented within our own operations.

Our investment in this space includes increasing our “SCADA R&D Lab” to play with toys from vendors, testing them out in our environment before we recommend and advise them to our clients and partners. Currently we’re working on LLMs for OT, building our own “DANN2.0” for use in-house. DANN is an homage to Dan Nagala (and, for the nerds, stands for Dan Artificial Neural Network), which we started in 2022 when I realized that knowledge capture is an industry wide epidemic and we need to be ready to integrate for our clients in a safe and local way at scale, in the OT environment.

Additionally, having come from a startup before joining UTSI, I wanted to get us closer to the heart of innovation, so we’ve added additional office space at The Cannon downtown. While there are many tech hubs around Houston, and we are proud to work with and partner with companies from Greentown Labs and the Ion, to name a few, we’ve found that The Cannon community is incredibly active and innovative, with experience in industrial use-cases.

Houston is set to become the Energy Transition capital, leading in hydrogen, carbon capture, and repurposing. With a 5:1 ratio of engineers leaving the industry and an average age over 60, we must innovate. The solution lies in combining a secure, cloud-free "ChatGPT for OT" with digital twins. Bringing the field to engineers is essential. We've partnered with a satellite constellation for asset imaging and U.K.-based Mods Solutions to leverage their CFIHOS-driven platform for intelligent digital twins — more on that partnership soon!

And we will need to leverage enhanced automation tools and actively monitor control networks to ensure security and respond quickly to issues, which is why we’ve partnered with Nozomi Networks.

Shaping the future

Although Dan has semi-retired to his cabin in Montana, he continues to do “the fun stuff” that brings him joy, such as conducting research for PRCI and assisting long-time clients. He also has been a mentor and advisor to me since I started at UTSI three years ago. I’m grateful for him and the group of industry experts he gathered around him to make UTSI such a well-known systems integrator and OT advisor for the world’s largest asset owners.

Our group of experts are active in the industry and will be speaking at events throughout the year, with a presence at Entellec, Level Zero, and participating at this year's API Cybernetics and PSIGs biannual conferences. We proudly serve on the BCarbon advisory board and GHPs Energy Committee.

Lastly, we have one request: We see a critical need for H2 and supercritical CO2 studies to develop simulation models, response plans, and leak detection best practices. These gases differ from those covered in existing standards. If you know anyone interested in funding or contributing, we’re collaborating with industry partners to secure support.

Houston named No. 2 most diverse major U.S. city for 2025

Ranking It

Houston has always been a diverse place, embracing people of many different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. And the city is earning new recognition in WalletHub's rankings of the most diverse large American cities for 2025.

The 2025 edition is the final installment in WalletHub's diversity study series, which annually compared 501 U.S. cities across 13 metrics in five categories that encompass "diversity" across socioeconomic, cultural, economic, household, and religious factors.

Cities were also ranked by population, with large cities defined as those with over 300,000 residents, midsize cities with 100,000 to 300,000 residents, and small cities with fewer than 100,000 residents.

Houston nearly topped the list of large U.S. cities, coming in at No. 2, and ranked at No. 5 in the overall national comparison.

The top three most diverse American cities, which have held their positions for the second consecutive year, are all located in Maryland: Gaithersburg (No. 1), Silver Spring (No. 2), and Germantown (No. 3).

Houston performed spectacularly in the study's overall rankings for socioeconomic (No. 14), cultural (No. 32), and religious diversity (No. 63), but fell behind in the categories for household (No. 129) and economic diversity (No. 165).

In the more detailed comparisons across educational-attainment, linguistic, and industry diversity, Houston ranked among the top 30 in all three categories out of the 501 cities included in the report.

Here's how Houston performed across the remaining eight categories in the study:

  • No. 44 – Racial and ethnic diversity
  • No. 129 – Household type diversity
  • No. 200 – Household size diversity
  • No. 201 – Income diversity
  • No. 207 – Occupational diversity
  • No. 239 – Birthplace diversity
  • No. 284 – Age diversity
  • No. 343 – Worker-class diversity

Embracing diversity is not only good for local communities, it's also beneficial for the economy, the report says.

"Not only have waves of immigration changed the face of the nation, they’ve also brought in fresh perspectives, skills, and technologies to help the U.S. develop a strong adaptability to change," the report's author wrote. "Economies generally fare better when they openly embrace and capitalize on new ideas. Conversely, those relying on old ways and specialized industries tend to be hurt more by changes in the market."

Houston is a repeat performer: It slipped one spot from its 2024 ranking, and previously topped the overall list in 2021 — showing that the city has consistently maintained in diversity over the years.

Other diverse Texas cities
Elsewhere in Texas, Arlington surpassed Houston as the No. 4 overall most diverse city, and took the No. 1 spot in the "large city" category.

Dallas ranked just outside the top 10 this year, landing in 11th place after previously ranking eighth overall in 2024. Dallas also appeared in sixth place in the national rankings for the most diverse large cities, so the city still has some catching up to do.

Fort Worth fell into No. 25 overall this year, in a three-place slip from last year's ranking. The city performed the best in the overall categories for socioeconomic and cultural diversity, earning a respective No. 58 and No. 61.

The top 10 most diverse cities in America in 2025 are:

  • No. 1 – Gaithersburg, Maryland
  • No. 2 – Silver Spring, Maryland
  • No. 3 – Germantown, Maryland
  • No. 4 – Arlington, Texas
  • No. 5 – Houston, Texas
  • No. 6 – New York, New York
  • No. 7 – Charlotte, North Carolina
  • No. 8 – Jersey City, New Jersey
  • No. 9 – Danbury, Connecticut
  • No. 10 – Los Angeles, California
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A version of this story originally appeared on our sister site, CultureMap.com.

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