About Us

Mr. Mendizabal is the President and Founder of ARETE. He has over thirty-five years of experience providing consulting and technologies to the utility, government, and commercial industries. Prior to starting ARETE, he was the Vice President of MasTek, a power systems engineering company, where he was responsible for marketing, sales and program management. His career also included Vice President of Digital Map Products, a mapping software as a service company where he oversaw the customer support, professional services, and data development teams. He founded CorDax, a systems integration firm providing engineering and enterprise solutions, which became one of the premier technology firms in the western states with six office locations in four western states. Mr. Mendizabal attended the Executive Education Program at the the University of Southern California and Architectural Design Engineering Program at Miami Dade College. He has been acknowledged by OC Metro magazine as one of Orange County’s top 25 individuals in the business community.

Mr. Pinarija is a Business Consultant and Account Executive at Arete. Prior to joining ARETE, he was an Account Manager at MasTek, a power energy engineering firm in which he was responsible for developing marketing communications, client relations and providing proposal solutions to meet client needs. At Gadzoom he was an Account Manager responsible for client services and supporting users of the construction document and project data management platform for federal contractors. Prior he worked for Teehee Engineering as a construction coordinator where he constructed utility infrastructure for federal projects. Mr. Pinarija has a Bachelor of Science in Business Economics from the University of California, Davis.

Mr. Kalra is a Principal Electrical Engineer at ARETE with over 40 years of experience in the power electric utility industry with an emphasis in medium to high voltage power transformer and apparatus commissioning, testing, diagnostics and maintenance. In addition to field knowledge, Mr. Kalra has performed as an expert witness product acceptance for major procurements. Throughout his career, Mr. Kalra has worked for Southern California Edison being responsible for the transformer maintenance. Additionally, Mr. Kalra provided consulting services to the City of Riverside, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and San Diego Gas and Electric.

Mr. Pettikkattil is an Electrical Engineer at ARETE with six years of experience in power electrical systems, protection and relay controls, and programming and developing applications in support of power distribution. He is also a licensed Professional Engineer. Mr. Pettikkattil previously has worked supporting the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power where he had the opportunity to design and support the LADWP’s system protection group in the development and maintenance of the test equipment inventory and relay settings database. He also worked for the United States Air Force where he conducted arc flash analysis studies and labeled various electrical equipment that power the water apparatuses throughout the Vandenberg Air Force Base. Mr. Pettikkattil has a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California State Northridge, and a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Electrical and Electronics from the Mahatma Gandhi University in Kerala, India.

Mr. Cabreros is a Program Manager at ARETE with 31 years of experience. He works with clients in further developing the use of engineering design applications, such as Computer Aided Design, in order to leverage the latest technologies within the client’s design engineering programs. He has experience designing power energy systems, substations, sub systems, machined parts, piping layouts, injection molding, castings, pneumatic devices, and metal frames from concept. Mr. Cabreros has extensive knowledge in various Computer Aided Design platforms such as SolidWorks, Inventor, Nastran, AutoCad, Inventor, ProEngineer and CAD data management such as PDM Works, SmarTeam, and Autodesk Vault.