About Ascend
Ascend is an industry-built learning platform created by Rise Solutions, a company founded by natural gas professionals with decades of experience across trading, logistics, accounting, risk management, and ETRM technology.
Our mission is simple: Bridge the gap between education and real-world energy careers.
Traditional education teaches concepts. Employers need professionals who understand how the business actually operates. Ascend was created to help close that gap through practical, end-to-end industry training.
The Problems Faced
Barriers to Entry
Most employers want experience. Most new professionals don't have it yet. This creates a frustrating catch-22: you need experience to get hired, but you need a job to gain experience. In most cases, the lack of knowledge and hands-on experience are the barriers to entry.
Learning Curve
Many new hires spend six to nine months learning industry fundamentals before they can contribute confidently. That learning curve costs time for employees and money for employers.
Silo Effect
Many professionals spend years becoming experts in a single role but never gain visibility into how the broader business operates. The result is knowledge gaps, communication challenges, and missed opportunities for better decision-making.
Institutional Knowledge Loss
A critical risk in today's natural gas industry — and many others — is the loss of institutional knowledge as experienced operators retire. Newer staff often rely solely on software interfaces, knowing how to push buttons but not understanding the underlying physical flows, transaction pathways, or system interconnections.
Proven in the Classroom. Applied in the Industry.
Since 2009, members of the Rise team have helped educate thousands of students through the University of Houston's Bauer College of Business Energy Trading Systems curriculum.
Students gain exposure to the same concepts, workflows, and technologies used throughout the industry.
Ascend expands that proven educational model beyond the classroom, making it accessible to professionals and organizations anywhere.
Our Solution: Asset From Day One
Understand the Entire Industry
Learn how natural gas moves from production to consumption and how each function connects across the value chain.
Ascend provides you with hands-on experience and expertise that mitigates the Entry Barrier, Learning Curve, the Silo Effect, and Institutional Knowledge Loss. The curriculum teaches the entire natural gas value chain end to end, from the moment a resource is extracted from the ground to the moment it is consumed by an end user. Students don't just study one functional area; they learn how supply, logistics, and demand connect across every layer of the business.
Think Beyond Your Role
Develop a cross-functional understanding that helps you communicate, solve problems, and make better decisions.
Every module is designed to connect to the ones around it, building a complete picture of how the industry works from production through consumption. Professionals who understand the full value chain make better decisions, communicate more effectively across teams, and become the people their organizations turn to when it matters most.
Learn the Why Behind the Systems
Understand the physical flows, commercial transactions, and operational processes behind the software tools used throughout the industry.
Ascend directly addresses these risks by building the foundational knowledge. Professionals gain a clear grasp of how gas physically moves from wellhead to burner tip, how transactions are structured and settled, and why each step matters. With this understanding, teams are far less vulnerable to system outages, software glitches, or flawed automated processes — because they can reason through issues from first principles rather than just following screen prompts.
Gain Hands-On Experience
Advanced courses provide guided access to the same ETRM technology used by industry professionals to manage transactions, logistics, settlements, and risk.
In addition to providing you with expansive industry knowledge, Ascend gives students, as part of the more advanced courses, hands-on access to the same Energy Trading and Risk Management (ETRM) platform used by Rise Solutions commercial clients. Students manage real transactions, schedule gas movements, balance storage reserves, reconcile volumes, and directly observe how physical operations translate into financial outcomes — precisely the work they will perform in their professional roles.
This is how Ascend mitigates these hurdles.
Built on Proven Expertise
For decades, Rise Solutions has supported natural gas companies through technology, consulting, and operational expertise.
The Rise ETRM platform supports critical business functions including deal capture, scheduling, risk management, compliance, and financial settlement.
The same expertise behind those solutions now powers Ascend.
Ready to become an Asset from Day One?
Join professionals across the energy industry who are building real-world expertise.
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