Our Team

Drawing on more than two decades of engineering, operations and strategic leadership in the electric industry, Janet Rehberg is focused on advancing EPB’s mission to enhance quality of life for our customers while preparing Chattanooga for the future.

Before becoming CEO, Rehberg served as EPB President of Strategic Initiatives, leading efforts to operationalize innovation by deploying next-generation energy and fiber optic technologies. In doing so, she helped forge our community’s national reputation as the most advanced hub for commercializing quantum technologies while expanding Chattanooga’s opportunity ecosystem through major partnerships with universities, private sector companies, and government research organizations.

Prior to EPB, Rehberg served as Interim CEO, Chief Strategy Officer and Vice President of Engineering for Tri-County Electric Cooperative in Aledo, Texas, where she was responsible for formulating strategy and oversaw a wide range of departments including operational and engineering groups. She previously held leadership roles with American Electric Power, where she helped lead grid modernization initiatives to strengthen system reliability and support emerging technologies.

Rehberg earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tulsa and a Master of Business Administration from Capital University. She serves on the board of the Hunter Museum of American Art and has contributed to numerous nonprofit, community and professional organizations.

As President of Strategic Initiatives, Robert Long leads EPB’s efforts to identify, develop and advance forward-looking initiatives that leverage EPB’s advanced energy, connectivity and quantum infrastructure to benefit local customers while opening new economic opportunities for the Chattanooga area.

With more than three decades of experience across industries that include energy, advanced manufacturing, consumer healthcare and emerging technologies, Long joined EPB from Novonix Limited, where he was chief financial officer of the publicly traded company focused on advanced battery materials. Before that, he was the entrepreneurial founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bridges Consumer Healthcare and Senior Vice President of Strategic Development at Shaw Industries. Long previously held multiple leadership roles at Sanofi Consumer Healthcare, including Head of North America Region and Chief Executive Officer of Chattem, Inc.

Long earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance with a minor in Economics from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. A lifelong Chattanoogan, Long has been active in community and professional organizations, including serving on the board of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association at the national level, United Way of Greater Chattanooga, and the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce.

With more than thirty years of experience in the commercial communication networks industry, Kirk McLemore is responsible for Strategic Partnerships at EPB Quantum. Kirk began his EPB career more than 20 years ago, when he was part of the team that deployed the nation’s most advanced automated energy grid and the world’s fastest community-wide internet.

Prior to joining EPB, Kirk worked with AT&T, BellSouth and KMC Telecom in various management roles. During his career, he has been a part of teams involved in three network launches.

McLemore holds a degree from Tennessee Technological University. In his spare time, he enjoys volunteering in a variety of local community organizations and has held board positions with the local Maker Faire and is a former President and Board Chair for the Chattanooga Technology Council.

As Manager of Quantum Systems at EPB, Patrick Swingle oversees the operational capability, improvement and expansion of EPB Quantum. He joins EPB after a 4-year tenure with Qubitekk Inc. as Senior Quantum Network Engineer, where he led the technical implementation of the EPB Quantum Network.

Swingle has more than 25 years of fiber optic network expertise in commercial and customer-oriented settings, including Airnet Group, Ericsson and Sprint. He holds an associate degree in Engineering and Computer Information Technology with a Networking focus from Chattanooga State Community College and is a published author of the paper “Architecture of a First-Generation Commercial Quantum Network.”

As Manager of Quantum Computing, Paul Smith leads initiatives to advance quantum technologies and integrate them into practical applications to drive innovation and operational excellence. He oversees strategic projects that enhance computational capabilities and foster collaboration across multiple departments.

Before stepping into his current role, Paul held leadership positions in technology and innovation at EPB, where he managed enterprise-scale systems and guided teams through complex modernization efforts. His experience spans software development, infrastructure optimization, and emerging technology adoption, giving him a unique perspective on bridging traditional computing with quantum advancements.

Quantum Physicist Alexander Miloshevsky’s experience will build upon EPB Quantum’s collaborative efforts to advance quantum technologies for real-world applications with industry, academia and government research institutions.

Miloshevsky joined EPB from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he contributed to several research areas, most recently using photonic integrated circuits to generate entangled pairs for deployment in a quantum network. His research has been published in peer-reviewed journals and conference papers, including Optica Quantum, Applied Optics and Optics Express.

Miloshevsky completed his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where his thesis focused on simulating space-based quantum networking in harsh environments.

As Quantum Systems Engineer, Jackson Ricketts supports the enhancement, programming and maintenance of EPB Quantum Network. Ricketts joined EPB from Leidos, where he was a physicist and software engineer for the company’s Radio Frequency Systems Portfolio. Previously, he held research positions at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for Neutron Symmetries and at the University of Cadiz in Spain for Computational Astrophysics.

Ricketts graduated from the Honors College at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Cum Laude, with a bachelor’s degree in Physics and completed his thesis, “Simulation and Analysis of Charged Particle Activity and Detection Efficiency for the Nab Experiment.”