Industry Advisory Board

Maria Naff

Maria Naff

Engineering Manager, Salt River Project

Maria Naff serves as an engineering manager for the Salt River Project and leads the
team that develops and maintains the design and construction standards for the power
delivery system. Maria joined SRP in 2003 and started as a rotational engineer after
graduating with a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Arizona State
University. Maria has worked and contributed to several power system areas. After her
rotational experience, Maria worked as an engineer in transmission system planning.
As a senior engineer, Maria was a key player involved in many system studies for large
capital projects. While in transmission system planning, Maria went back to school and
received her MBA from the W.P. Carey Technology, Science, and Engineering Program
at ASU. Shortly thereafter, Maria transitioned into resource planning, where she
performed long-term studies for SRP’s generation portfolio, focused on reducing carbon
emissions from traditional generation while increasing sustainable resources. Maria
earned and became a licensed professional engineer in the State of Arizona.

After spending most of her career in planning, Maria transitioned into policy, procedures,
and standards where she became a principal engineer, responsible for the substation
design and construction standards. She was promoted to the department manager in
2018. Maria has had a variety of leadership roles and has participated in several
leadership programs. Prior to her current position, she led a major initiative at SRP
aimed at improving the interconnection process for distributed energy resources for
large commercial and industrial customers. In addition, she participated in the Hispanic
Leadership Institute and was awarded Top 40 Leaders Under 40 in 2011. Maria joined
the Engineering Industry Advisory Board in 2020 and was also a member of the
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Subcommittee. Since then, Maria has been a part of a
project team focused on the recruitment and retention of women in power systems at
SRP.