the networked grid 2013

Doug Kim is the director of Advanced Technology, Southern California Edison’s technology evaluation organization. This Transmission and Distribution Business Unit group operates as part of the Engineering and Technical Services division and is responsible for SCE’s smart grid development, which includes advanced grid technologies, energy storage, electric transportation, and the integration of energy smart consumer products.

Before taking the helm at Advanced Technology, Mr. Kim led SCE’s Plug-In Electric Vehicle Readiness efforts to ensure SCE’s grid and services are prepared to support the integration of the many new electric vehicles being marketed by automobile manufacturers.

Prior to leading the PEV Readiness group’s activities, Mr. Kim served as general manager for Edison Carrier Solutions, a business unit of SCE that provides large capacity fiber optics-based broadband services to local and long distance telephone, alternative telecommunications service providers, wireless carriers, cable television, and internet access companies.

Kim began his tenure at Edison International (EIX), the parent company of SCE, in 1996 where he was engaged in the company’s strategic planning and new business development. He also served as an internal consultant for many of EIX’s operating units. Mr. Kim went on to manage a variety of SCE organizations where he led the assessment of new business opportunities, development of strategies, and detailed business plans.

Mr. Kim earned a Master of Business Administration degree from UCLA and his Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA.

Tony Tewelis joined Arizona Public Service (APS) in February of 2008. He currently is the Director, Technology Innovation. He is responsible for the overall strategic development and implementation of the Company’s advanced technology based solutions, with a key focus on smart grid technologies and the integration of renewable energy. These responsibilities include the oversight and management of the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the Company’s key asset deployments and pilot projects, including all small scale (<10 MW) solar power plants, as well as the engineering research, studies, economic evaluations and technical intelligence necessary to support the commercialization and integration of renewable energy resources

Prior to his current role, Tewelis was responsible the corporation’s renewable distributed energy program (end-use applications derived from Solar, Wind, Biogas/Biomass, Geothermal, Hydro, and other renewable fuel sources). His duties included policy development, program design, stakeholder management, market intelligence, budgeting, and other program related activities that result in the overall achievement of regulatory compliance targets, customer satisfaction levels, and other sustainability related goals that were consistent with APS’s strategic and integrated resource plans.

Prior to joining APS, Tewelis worked for nearly twenty years in Wisconsin with utilities, most recently as the Director of Customer Relations and Interconnection Services for the American Transmission Company (ATC). Before ATC, he held several management positions with Alliant Energy (formerly Wisconsin Power & Light).

Witold has over 20 year of experience working with the electric utility industry with focus on power grid switching and protection, distribution automation, smart grid technologies, and communications. He currently serves as Vice President of Product Innovation at S&C Electric Company, a Chicago-based global provider of equipment and services, and a recognized leader in Distribution Automation and Smart Grid solutions. In his role Witold has responsibility for R&D and new product design for world-wide markets. Before that he was in charge of S&C’s Automation Systems Division. Prior to joining S&C, he was President of EnergyLine Systems, a supplier or real-time embedded controls systems. Earlier at EnergyLine he was responsible for product development with focus on distributed intelligence and communications. Prior to EnergyLine he worked in Silicon Valley where he was involved in development of high-tech logging equipment for the oil industry. Witold has MS in Electrical Engineering with emphasis on real-time computer controls systems.

Andres is an award winning engineer, executive, speaker, and author. Andres is one of the early pioneers and developers of the Smart Grid concept and technology. He championed Austin Energy’s vision, program, and implementation from 2003 – 2010, as their CIO, and co-authored the book “The Advanced Smart Grid”. He is a member of the IEEE and ASME. He has over 26 years of experience in the Energy, Telecommunications, Software and Computer industries. He is currently the EVP & Chief Strategy Officer at Proximetry, offering AirSync - the first smart grid network management platform. He is a board member of the Utility Telecom Council’s Smart Networks Council, and an advisor to KU, UCLA, UT Austin, KLD Energy, Amperion, and Zpryme. He has received over 33 awards for his industry contributions. He is a well-known speaker on Energy, Telecommunications, and IT topics. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kansas and he has completed executive programs at Stanford University in business, at The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania in quality management, and at The University of Idaho in electric utility management. Andres started his career at Microsoft as a product manager for Windows in 1986.

John Dirkman P.E., Sr. Product Manager, Smart Grid Global for Schneider Electric, provides product and program management for advanced integrated Smart Grid systems from concept through sales, design, development, implementation, and maintenance.  He is responsible for driving the technical Smart Grid vision and strategy and ensuring product success in the marketplace.  Mr. Dirkman has been with Schneider Electric for more than 10 years, and has served as product and program manager for a wide variety of Smart Grid and GIS implementations.

Based at S&C Electric Company’s headquarters in Chicago IL, Michael Edmonds is the Chief Commercial Officer of the company. Responsibilities include all aspects of the business go-to-market strategy that solve customer problems - ranging from traditional switching & protection, grid reliability, consulting services,  microgrids, & the management of the electrical power grid. Previous roles at S&C include President US business, VP Strategic Solutions covering strategy, product management, and marketing.

Before joining S&C Electric Company in 2010, his previous roles included VP & GM of Siemens Energy Automation and Power Technologies Inc (PTI). With these positions, he was responsible for the business of real-time energy management (EMS/DMS) and transmission network planning businesses.

Seth co-founded EnergyHub in 2007 and continues to serve as its President. Under his leadership, EnergyHub has become a leading provider of both utility-installed and Bring Your Own Thermostat® demand response services. EnergyHub offers utilities end-to-end demand response program management, including program design, installation, marketing, and customer support services, as well as EnergyHub's Mercury software platform for device control, with the goal of enabling both utilities and consumers to benefit from participation in DR programs. Seth is a frequent speaker on demand response and connected home issues and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Smart Electric Power Alliance.

Hormoz Kazemzadeh, is the VP of Distribution and Smart Grid at OSI, Inc. where he leads development, delivery, and support of OSI’s distribution solutions including SCADA/DMS, OMS and advanced applications. In his 23 years of experience, he has held various leadership roles in the industry focused on distribution planning, analysis, and operations. He has consulted with numerous utilities and led many projects for the implementation of advanced systems and applications. The smart grid applications that he has worked with include DPF, FLISR, VVC, and CVR. Mr. Kazemzadeh holds a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from the Ohio State University.

As Chief Technology Officer, Larsh is leading hardware and software engineering to meet the needs of Stem's C&I, utility, and energy market customers. Prior to joining Stem, Larsh was Chief Technology Officer at Siemens Digital Grid, where he led technology development teams on products spanning from consumer metering, demand response and analytics to control center software and grid automation. He joined Siemens via the acquisition of eMeter, a Bay Area software company of which he was a co-founder and responsible for innovation and development of meter data management, analytics, and advanced smart grid applications. Prior to eMeter, he co-founded CellNet Data Systems, a pioneer in wireless networks for smart metering and distribution automation and now a unit of Landis+Gyr a Toshiba company. Larsh was a founding member of the DOE’s Gridwise Architecture Council (GWAC) and remains a Member Emeritus. He earned a B.S. and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

Salim Khan is the CEO and a Director of Stem, Inc. He is a proven executive with 25+ years of experience in technology innovations and business management. He joined Stem from Trilliant where he was President/COO. Prior to that Salim was President/General Manager at ABB’s Network Management business in the Americas where he grew ABB’s software business unit and led multiple acquisitions of smart grid software companies with over $1 billion in investments. Prior to ABB, Salim held management positions at Landis+Gyr, Siemens and BP-Systems Control, Inc. Salim earned his Electrical / Software Engineering degree, with honors, from the University of Florida.

Laura is currently the Director of Corporate Strategy for SK Telecom Americas (NYSE:SKM) and heads business development for its GridMaven™ Network Manager business.  She was responsible for developing and executing the company's US smart grid entry strategy, launching enterprise software solutions in network management and billing for utilities.   She brings over twelve years of experience pioneering new markets cleantech markets in the US and internationally, including brokerage and structured transactions in renewable energy credits, emission reduction credit (ERC) markets, renewable power purchase agreements and water banking.

Michael R. Montoya is the director of Grid Advancement for Southern California Edison’s Transmission and Distribution business unit. This Advanced Technology group, previously Engineering Advancement, was created in November 2004 to evaluate, test, demonstrate, and analyze technologies for implementation on SCE’s grid. Under Montoya’s leadership, Grid Advancement teams investigate advancements in power systems modeling and analysis, transmission and distribution automation, distributed energy resources, home area networking, communications and security, infrastructure improvements, asset management, and a variety of devices and systems to make the electric grid more reliable, safe and affordable.

Mr. Montoya has made many contributions throughout his 37-year career at SCE. Prior to heading research, development and demonstration at SCE, Montoya was director of TDBU’s Project Management Organization and director of Grid Operations, Protection and Controls. During his tenure at SCE he served in both technical and managerial capacities. Montoya managed transmission substation projects, was superintendent of transmission construction and maintenance, and superintendent of substation operations and maintenance, and held supervisory and bargaining unit positions for the Transmission and Substation division.

Montoya earned his undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of La Verne and certificates in I.T. Essentials for Business Leadership from Pepperdine University and Sustaining the Innovative Organization from the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Vassilis is the CEO and co-founder of Intelen Inc, a New York based software company in the domain of building energy efficiency analytics and customer engagement with the use of advanced behavioral data science. Intelen has already completed three funding rounds and is currently under high growth, expanding in USA and in many European countries. He has global recognitions with his start-up, in top innovation and entrepreneurship contests (US Red herring global, SVASE Silicon Valley Launch, Siemens global smartgrid innovation award). From 2005 to 2011, he has worked on technical trend forecasting methodologies and innovation management procedures, focusing on the Big Data problems applied to Utilities and the Energy Sector (Smart Grids).

He has also worked for over 9 years in applied energy behavioral science, data analytics, algorithms and the application of social networks to change human behaviors towards a more sustainable way of living, especially in corporate environments. He applies some innovative data-driven behavioral science and mobile learning techniques over utility and meter data to identify behavioral trends that can raise the awareness of people inside commercial and educational buildings.

Intelen, Inc is currently deploying advanced energy and engagement analytics services to big Utilities and C&I customers.

He is a valedictorian Electrical Engineer from Dundee University, Scotland with postgraduate studies at Imperial College, LSE, Cambridge, Ecole Polytechnique and a PhD from Technical University of Athens, focused on real-time big data decision making.

Eric is the Vice President of Engineering at Xtreme Power where he and his team are focused on developing utility scale energy storage systems and have fielded more than 75MW worth of systems.  His work background includes over 10 years of experience with tenures as a SCADA Systems Engineer and Power System Design Engineer.  Eric has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University and a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas and is a registered professional engineer in the state of Texas.

Mischa is an ambitious professional with a drive for knowledge and new challenges. He is known for his high level of enthusiasm, strong work ethic with an ability to communicate clearly and concisely. He has experience in project management, customer relations, and time sensitive product development related to wireless, electronic, and electrical systems. At age 29, in 2009, Mischa founded the company Awesense, with the sole purpose of solving the global problem of energy loss in the electrical grid. Today, Awesense has nearly 20 employees, and has customers in North America, Latin America, Europe, with business partners in these regions plus Asia-Pacific, China, and Japan.

Mischa holds a Diploma of Technology in Telecommunications from BCIT, and a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from University of Victoria. Mischa also represents Awesense Wireless as a voting and participating member within the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) led by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

As EPB’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, David Wade leads the company’s effort to operate one of the country’s most sophisticated smart electric distribution systems.

Using a 100% fiber optic network as its backbone, EPB has constructed a Smart Grid that is already providing reduction in power outage duration for the Chattanooga, TN community – up to 100% in some instances.

The Smart Grid’s fiber optic communications backbone is also allowing EPB to offer its customers the fastest Internet speeds in the Western Hemisphere, adding another advantage for Chattanooga area homes and businesses alike.

Bradley Williams is Vice president of Oracle Utilities Innovation Engineering, and is responsible drive innovation in electric, gas and water utility operational solutions including outage management, distribution management, distributed energy resource management, mobile workforce management, work and asset management, and analytics solutions as well as smart grid strategy.

Williams has more than 32 years of utility technology innovation experience. Prior to joining Oracle, he was a research director for Gartner’s Energy and Utilities Industry Advisory Services, focusing on utility applications of GIS, SCADA/EMS/DMS, outage and work management, and transmission and distribution (T&D) asset management research. Prior to that, he directed PacifiCorp’s T&D asset management and was responsible for long-term asset strategies and business technology that developed and implemented comprehensive IT investment programs. As director of T&D infrastructure planning, he was responsible for PacifiCorp’s subtransmission planning, telecommunications, and operations technology development groups. Williams also worked at Southern California Edison for 10 years, where he was involved in transmission system planning, distribution automation, and reliability programs. Brad holds 4 US patents and is a licensed professional engineer in California USA.

Ben is the Director of Grid Research for Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables (Formerly GTM Research), specializing in Distribution Automation, Network Management and Renewables Integration markets. He previously worked as a research analyst for Knwldg Houston, formerly a green energy and healthcare consulting firm, where his research focused on AMI deployment and smart grid regulatory policy. Prior to Knwldg Houston, Ben was a policy intern with Wexler and Walker Public Policy Associates where he performed research for energy, transportation, and defense clients.

He has authored multiple studies on the smart grid market, concentrating on policy evolution, technology innovation, the market's competitive landscape and project economics. Ben has delivered keynote presentations for multiple industry conferences, moderated and participated in panels covering a variety of topics, and regularly hosts industry webinars with GTM Research / Greentech Media. Ben has been a smart grid contributor on CNN Money, NPR, and the Texas Tribune. He graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science.

Rick Thompson co-­founded Greentech Media in 2007, leading the company from unknown upstart to the authoritative information services provider covering the transformation of the global electricity system.

Prior to GTM, Thompson spent 15 years at leading technology start­ups, incumbent networking and telecommunications companies, and technology media and market research firms. Rick was senior telecom analyst at Light Reading/Heavy Reading, the dominant online media & research firm in the telecommunications market, acquired by CMP Media in 2005. Mr. Thompson previously served as the vice president of marketing at PanGo Networks, a wireless software startup, and as director of product management and marketing at Sycamore Networks Inc., where he defined the product strategy and launch of the industry’s first intelligent optical switching platform through their IPO in 1999. Under his leadership, Sycamore deployed several of the world’s largest intelligent optical network infrastructures. Prior to joining Sycamore, Rick held product management positions with Packet Engines, a pioneer of Gigabit Ethernet switching that was later acquired by Alcatel; and FORE Systems, a leader in ATM networking that was later acquired by Marconi and, subsequently, Ericsson. Mr. Thompson earned a bachelor of science degree in industrial engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.

Zach currently serves as an analyst on the Smart Grid team at GTM Research. Prior to GTM, Zach worked at Bloomberg, where he spent part of his tenure at New Energy Finance, contributing to the research and insight stream on the energy smart technologies team as well as consulting on a project for a leading global investment bank. Prior to Bloomberg, he served as a consultant at HydroEnviromental solutions, an environmental consulting and engineering firm. Zach graduated Cum Laude from Cornell University with a BS in Natural Resources and a minor in Nutritional Science. At Cornell, his undergraduate research focused on the policy issues surrounding the development and commercialization of alternative fuel vehicles in the United States. He is currently pursuing a Master’s of Science at Columbia University with a concentration on energy and sustainability.