Cooper Richey

Cooper Richey was a software developer and data analyst working in Enron’s Fundamentals Group, primarily based in Calgary, Canada. His role combined full-stack web development, database engineering, and quantitative analysis to build decision support tools for energy traders focused on Canadian power markets. Richey joined the Calgary office around late 2000 and worked on a distributed team spanning Calgary and Portland, Oregon, developing the Alberta Power analytical platform and automated data systems that supported Enron’s Canadian trading operations.

Richey’s email archive in the Enron corpus contains 1,129 messages with 109 unique correspondents, spanning April 30, 2001 to February 7, 2002. Notably, approximately 22% of this corpus consists of automated weather forecast reports generated by the data pipeline infrastructure he built and maintained. His signature terms reveal specializations in OLAP cube development, database administration, and messaging systems.

Career at Enron

Calgary Assignment

Richey relocated to Calgary around late 2000 to join Enron’s Canadian operations. By mid-May 2001, he had been working from the Calgary office for approximately five months, as he mentioned in an email exchange. He received Canadian tax withholding treatment while maintaining connections to colleagues in Portland, where he had previously lived. Periodic travel to Portland for team collaboration and project coordination kept him connected to the broader Fundamentals organization.

Fundamentals Group

The Fundamentals Group was a technical team building business intelligence and analytical tools for Enron’s energy trading operations. Richey worked within a distributed team structure that included developers and analysts in both Calgary and Portland. Regular “Fundamentals Web Development Conference Calls” connected the dispersed team members for coordination on shared projects.

The Calgary-based team included Colin Poon Tip (OLAP developer), Craig McLurg (Fundamentals analyst/developer), and Chris Wiebe (system administrator). The Portland contingent included Tim Heizenrader, who served as technical lead and appeared to have a mentor or manager relationship with Richey, and Robert Anderson, who handled infrastructure and web server management.

In May 2001, Richey conducted a performance review for an employee named Maria.

Technical Work

Alberta Power Platform

Richey’s primary project was the Alberta Power system, accessible at albertapower.enron.com. This web-based analytical platform provided Canadian power market data and analysis tools to Enron’s traders. The system’s key components included OLAP cubes for price volatility analysis that demonstrated significant performance improvements over traditional database queries, automated data scraping from the Power Pool of Alberta and BC Hydro, real-time dispatch tracking, and pivot table visualizations accessible through the web interface.

Richey noted the performance gains from the cube architecture, explaining how it improved “load/resource balance performance” compared to direct database queries. The pivot tables published through albertapower.enron.com were faster than direct database queries.

Database Development

Richey built SQL Server databases and stored procedures to support the Fundamentals Group’s analytical work. His database development included creating data pipelines that ingested information from external sources including weather services and market data providers, and integrating with PETE, Enron’s volume management system. He worked extensively with Colin Poon Tip on OLAP cube design and implementation.

Weather Data Automation

One of Richey’s ongoing responsibilities was maintaining automated weather data collection systems. The subject line “enron.xls” appears 248 times in his email archive. These were daily automated weather forecast reports collected from Environment Canada and distributed to relevant stakeholders. This weather data fed into the trading group’s analysis of Canadian power markets, where temperature variations directly affected electricity demand and prices.

Market Data Integration

Beyond weather data, Richey worked on integrating multiple market data sources into Enron’s analytical systems. These included EOL (Enron Online) real-time data feeds, subscriptions from market research providers including PIRA and DJInteractive, and ChartFX visualization components for rendering market data graphically.

Technical Expertise

Richey’s email correspondence reveals depth across multiple programming languages and technical domains. His membership in the Portland Perl Mongers (pdx-pm) user group and regular participation in their mailing list demonstrated active engagement in Perl programming. He joined the R-help mailing list and explored R for statistical analysis. In January 2002, he wrote about his experience with the language: “i’ve been playing around more with R (doing some reading and installing the basic package) and it looks fantastic. in particular, the database connectivity package (‘RODBC’) works right out of the box!” He stayed current with emerging tools in data analysis.

His infrastructure knowledge included IIS web server administration, HTML/ASP web development, VPN connectivity management, and SQL Server database administration. Richey engaged in discussions about Houston versus Portland web server standards and administration policies.

Key Correspondents

Richey’s correspondence patterns reflect a mix of automated systems, external contacts, and internal collaborators.

He built and maintained automated systems while staying connected to programming communities for professional development.

External Relationships

Richey maintained contacts with energy market professionals outside Enron. Jai Hawker at Peters & Co., a Calgary-based energy brokerage firm, was a frequent correspondent. Erik Cramer at NatSource Canada provided another connection to the broader Canadian energy market community. These relationships supported Richey’s understanding of the markets his analytical tools were designed to serve.

Career Timeline

The $40,000 performance bonus paid in December 2001 came despite the company’s deteriorating financial situation.

Personal Background

Email correspondence reveals glimpses of Richey’s life outside work. His parents, Holly and Mike Richey, planned to visit Calgary in 2001. References to a college reunion and correspondence with hampshire.edu suggest he attended Hampshire College. Before his Calgary assignment, Richey lived in Portland and maintained friendships there.

Richey’s interests extended beyond programming. His email traffic includes references to yoga classes, golf outings, wine tastings, and massage appointments.

Data Quality Notes

The research notes a discrepancy between the user briefing data (8,223 emails with 247 unique senders) and the PST archive analysis (1,129 emails with 109 unique senders). The larger numbers may include received mail or reflect a different archive format. The 248 automated “enron.xls” weather reports represent approximately 22% of the preserved corpus.

Legal Status

Cooper Richey does not appear in U.S. Department of Justice Enron Task Force materials or SEC enforcement actions. As a mid-level technical employee working on analytical tools rather than financial transactions or accounting decisions, he was not among those investigated in connection with Enron’s collapse.

See Also

• Fundamentals Group — The analytical team Richey worked within
• EnronOnline — The trading platform whose data Richey helped integrate
• Calgary Operations — Enron’s Canadian energy trading presence

References

This article is based on Cooper Richey’s email archive containing 1,129 messages from 109 unique senders, spanning April 30, 2001 to February 7, 2002. Email archive designation: zl_richey-c_*.pst.