Agenda

Solving the Problems of Very Long Feeders

Speaker: Kevin Mara, Executive Vice President, Hi-Line Engineering, a GDS Associates Company

Every utility has them—long, lightly loaded feeders that cause big headaches in reliability and power quality. But low loads make funding fixes tough. This session covers common mitigation strategies and examines targeted automation and distributed energy resources that can unlock value, enhance resilience, and support broader modernization goals. If you’re balancing reliability mandates with capital constraints, this session offers actionable insights for smarter infrastructure decisions.

Troubleshooting, Inspecting, and Energizing Transformers

Speaker: Brady Hansen, Owner, Written in Red Training

This session covers troubleshooting techniques, visible inspections, and electrical measurements to ensure proper and safe operation. You will use tools such as multimeters, transformer checkers, transformer turns ratio testers, infrared devices, and phasing sets. The session also emphasizes knowledge-based skills, including identifying susceptibility to manufacturing issues, turns ratio, full-load calculations, and fusing concerns. You will leave with new ideas, approaches, and opportunities to share effective techniques for maintaining and assessing critical electrical equipment.

Powered for Protection: Arc-Flash and FR Safety

Speaker: Alexa Powell, Director of Field Sales, National Safety Apparel

This session covers key NFPA 70E and OSHA 1910.269 standards, flame-resistant clothing essentials, and how innovative personal protective equipment enhances compliance and comfort on the job.

Flicker and LED Lighting: Finding the True Source

Speaker: Chris Mullins, President, Power Monitors

Flicker complaints are increasing with the rise of LED lighting and modern electronic loads. This session demonstrates how power quality tools can pinpoint whether flicker originates from the utility system or the customer’s own equipment. Using real power quality data and field examples, you will learn practical techniques for investigating complaints, communicating findings effectively, and showing when inexpensive LED bulbs or noisy harmonic loads—not the utility—are the true source of the problem.

Keep the Wheels On (and the Tickets Off)

Speaker: Mike Stevens, Operations Services Superintendent, Kootenai Electric Cooperative

Keeping a fleet safe and compliant takes more than meeting the basics. This session explores Department of Transportation requirements and proven practices for Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. It will cover pre- and post-trip inspections, weight classifications, and load securement, with insights into unique state rules. Whether you drive or manage equipment, you’ll gain practical steps to improve safety, reduce risk, and keep operations running smoothly.

Building the Legacy: A Naturally Intelligent Workforce in an Artificially Intelligent World

Speakers: Brady Hansen, Owner, Written in Red Training; and Travis Eri, Business Manager, IBEW Local 125

As the electrical industry transforms in the modern era, our legacy is shaped by the choices we make today. Like the pioneers of Thomas Edison’s Pearl Street Station in 1882, our approach to safety regulations, apprentice/journeyman training, and adapting to cultural shifts will influence how future generations view our contributions. Join us for a conversation on how the critical decisions made now will define the legacy we leave for future electrical workers.

Substation Bus Configuration: Balancing Operational Needs, Cost, and Reliability

Speaker: Kai Zeng, Substation Engineer, WSP

Choosing the right bus configuration is one of the most important decisions in substation design. Each option comes with trade-offs in cost, reliability, and operational needs. This session walks through the pros and cons of common bus configurations, highlights real-world considerations in selecting the best fit, and explores how power grid demands are shaping today’s substation design choices for future station expansion. You will gain practical insights to balance performance and resilience when planning or upgrading substations.

Ferroresonance: Understanding and Preventing a Hidden Hazard

Speaker: Chris Mullins, President, Power Monitors

This session explores ferroresonance from technical, operational, and safety perspectives. You will learn the conditions that trigger ferroresonance, how to recognize its electrical signatures, and its potential impacts on transformers, switchgear, and distribution systems. Safe switching practices, risks associated with distributed generation witness testing, and proven mitigation strategies will be highlighted. Real-world examples will emphasize how awareness and proper procedures can prevent equipment damage and ensure personnel safety.

Simplified Approach to Car-Charging Load Management

Speaker: Aaron Winter, Distribution Team Lead, HDR

This presentation focuses on typical battery charging load profile and software strategies for reducing peak demand. Learning how these load patterns are managed can help improve grid stability.

Outages and Consumer Communications: Best Practices for Managing Outages and Expectations

Speaker: Adam Dinges, Senior Vice President, Futura Systems

What should you expect from your outage management system, and what should your consumer expect from you? This session looks into best practices in the field and in the office, exploring tools and processes that give your teams solid, reliable solutions to address any outage or restoration situation. You will look at capabilities surrounding tablets in the field, real-time workforce management, and automated communications with consumers. The session will also feature real case scenarios that helped utilities manage large-scale events without scaling up their workforce.

Avoiding a Drift Into Danger

Speaker: Tim Durand, Safety Specialist, Snohomish County PUD

Deviations from established protocols often begin with good intentions—meeting a deadline, overcoming a constraint, or just getting the job done. Over time, these shortcuts can become the norm, gradually moving organizations away from safe, reliable practices. This session explores the concept of the normalization of deviance, “the drift,” highlighting how cultural, operational, and systemic factors contribute to this silent erosion of safety. Through real-world case studies and practical tools, you will learn how to recognize early signs of the drift and rebuild a culture anchored in awareness, accountability, and continuous improvement.

Substation Safety Signage: Code and Best Practice

Speaker: Joe Brownholtz, Western Regional Sales Manager, Electromark

This presentation will ensure you know how to properly sign fenced substation enclosures for the safety of the public, keep your utility in compliance with safety signage regulations, and protect your utility from litigation and liability. This includes driving codes such as the NESC, ANSI Z535 safety sign design standards, best practice materials, and sign sizes, spacing, and placements.

Successful Planning for Substation Equipment Removal

Speaker: Les Joel, General Manager, Transformer Technologies

This presentation will cover the key environmental, financial, and operational areas involved in removing oil-filled electrical equipment from a live substation or generating facility. By providing prospective contractors with the proper information up front, you will receive an accurate, comprehensive proposal, resulting in a removal project completed on time and within budget.

Pole Position: Managing Joint Use Challenges Amid Infrastructure Investment

Speaker: Kevin Mara, Executive Vice President, Hi-Line Engineering, a GDS Associates Company

In racing, a great pole position allows a driver to dictate the pace and often leads to victory. In broadband deployment, utilities that secure the right strategic position—through joint use readiness, NESC compliance, and make-ready planning—will be best positioned to lead the next wave of federally funded infrastructure investment.

Closing the Hazard Awareness Delay: Modernizing Legacy Grids With Active Grid Response

Panelists: Joy Mastache, Senior Attorney, SMUD; Tim Bedford, Principal Customer Success Manager, Gridware; Troy Dahlgren, Power Superintendent, Brigham City; and Scott Lindsay, Director of Sales, Gridware

Utilities are under increasing pressure to improve reliability, safety, and wildfire resilience while operating legacy infrastructure. This panel explores how utilities are reducing hazard awareness delay, the time between when a hazard occurs and when it’s detected, through active grid response enabled by pole-mounted sensing technology. Panelists will share practical insights from real-world deployments that use Gridscopes to detect faults, enhance situational awareness, and accelerate response. You will learn how active grid response helps bridge awareness gaps, improve operational efficiency, and modernize distribution systems without requiring full-scale rebuilds.

Your Personal Behavioral Health Toolkit

Speakers: Drew McDaniel, CEO, Columbia Wellness; and Don Wheeler, Environmental Coordinator, Chelan PUD

Are you prepared for everything life throws at you? No? Welcome to being human. Our lives can get complicated quickly. Knowing how and when to ask for help is a right each person has. Come to this session to learn tools you can add to your own toolkit and share with those around you when they need them, too.

Is the Future Today? Fusion in the Pacific Northwest

Panelists: Ryan Umstattd, Vice President of Product and Partnerships, Zap Energy; Kirk Hudson, General Manager, Chelan PUD; and Tom Bugert, Senior Director of State and Local Affairs, Helion • Moderator: Chris Heimgartner, General Manager, Whatcom County PUD

Once science fiction, affordable fusion energy is now becoming a reality. In this session, hear about cutting-edge projects coming to the Pacific Northwest and what they might mean for the region.

Critical Comms: Connecting the Utility When It Matters Most

Speakers: Courtney Rose, Chief Emergency Management Officer, Tacoma Public Utilities; John Zwosta, Senior Telecommunications Engineer, Tacoma Public Utilities; and Justin Oliver, Senior Telecommunications Engineer, Tacoma Public Utilities

Utilities rely on communication systems. These systems not only underpin day-to-day operations but also serve as the backbone of communication and coordination during emergencies, significant disruptions, and recovery periods. They provide interoperable functionality that allows emergency response and continuity personnel to exchange voice and data in real time—on demand, when needed, and as authorized. This panel discussion will explore how Tacoma Public Utilities ensures that critical information flows when it matters most.

Stabilizing Safety: Looking Back to Go Forward

Speaker: Jerry Lemm, Safety and Loss Instructor, Montana Electric Cooperatives’ Association

Modern day GPS and maps only work because someone has been there before us. Utilities need to use that same thought process to understand where they and their employees are heading as well. By reviewing the difference between a utility’s roots and its legacy, and understanding how to apply that knowledge, you will be better armed to guide your utility into the new beyond.

Line Protection: Past, Present, and Future

Speaker: Dan Henriod, Senior Application Engineer, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories

This presentation reviews transmission line protection concepts and will provide an overview of traditional protection schemes, methods, and technologies in common practice today, and new technologies addressing challenges associated with the modern grid.