WEI’s Project Management + Utilities Conference brings together gas and electric utility industry professionals to discuss the latest industry trends and best practices in PMO Leadership, Construction, and IT + Analytics. The diverse mix of presentations, Q&A panels, roundtable discussions and networking allow attendees to share their experiences and develop contacts in the similar roles throughout the utility industry. Expect to gain applicable insights on methodologies, techniques, tools, and best practices related to project management. This program is an excellent professional development and organizational team-building opportunity.
Member: $599 USD
Non-Member: $899 USD
Registration prices go up $100 after August 14, 2023. Registration includes full conference access and materials. Guest tickets are available for $125 and allow for a personal guest (a spouse or partner who does not work in the energy industry) to accompany a registered attendee at the event. Guest registration includes all meals and receptions.
12:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Optional Tours
Please see the Networking tab for details about the available tours.
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Registration
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Welcome Reception
Join us in downtown Portland to catch-up with colleagues and meet fellow conference attendees.
7:00 AM - 8:00 AM
Registration and Breakfast
Registration will be in the Colonel Lindbergh foyer, along with coffee refills and light pastries. Hot breakfast will be provided at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Downtown Portland's main buffet as part of attendee's hotel room reservation.
8:00 AM - 8:30 AM
Conference Welcome
Speaker(s): Cody Jura, Project Manager, Portland General Electric
Portland General Electric welcomes the group to Portland and the 2023 Project Management + Utilities Conference.
8:30 AM - 9:30 AM
2023 Outlook: The Future of the Energy & Utilities Industry
Speaker(s): Sam Uyeno, Partner, West Monroe
Changing the power grid is no simple task—and utilities must face these digital transformation challenges while still keeping the lights on. West Monroe presents their 2023 Outlook: The Future of the Energy & Utilities Industry report and discusses their findings, the leading trends of the year, and how they are showing up and impacting utility projects and project management.
9:30 AM - 9:45 AM
Break
9:45 AM - 10:45 AM
Breakout Sessions
Construction Track: Boardman to Hemingway: A Clean-Energy Superhighway
Speaker(s): Steve Giltner, Director of Operation Western Region, Quanta Infrastructure Solutions Group, LLC; Lindsay Barretto, PE Senior Manager, 500KV and Joint Projects, Idaho Power Company
Boardman to Hemingway, or “B2H,” is a proposed 500-kilovolt transmission line that will run approximately 290 miles across eastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho. B2H will connect two regions — the Pacific Northwest and Mountain West — that produce an abundance of clean energy but whose peak production and peak customer demand are mismatched. With B2H, customers in both regions will enjoy reliable, affordable, clean energy and rely less on expensive, carbon-emitting power plants.
QISG and Idaho Power Company are excited to participate in the WEI’s Project Management + Utilities Conference. Steve Giltner, Director of Operation Western Region QISG, and Lindsay Barretto, PE Senior Manager, 500KV and Joint Projects with Idaho Power Company, look forward to engaging with members of the industry in an interactive session about the CMAR contracting model and its application in the modern major projects segments. Some topics that will be covered include how QISG and IPC are using the CMAR model on the B2H project, lessons learned, team expectations and future application of the CMAR model.
PMO Leadership Track: How Do You Implement Change Management so your PMO Improvements Take Hold?
Moderator (s): Ryan McLaughlin, Power PMO Manager, Tacoma Power
Panelist(s): Behzad Hosseini, President & CEO, Toba Consulting; Kat Damiano, Business Change Management Team Lead, Southern California Gas Company; Joy Love, Business Transformation Specialist, Sacramento Municipal Utility District; Kristina Pham, Manager of Enterprise Organizational Change and Business Process, Seattle City Light
A panel of OCM professionals will discuss their experiences establishing change management in utility organizations of varying size and stages of implementation.
Sponsored by Toba Consulting
10:45 AM - 11:00 AM
Break
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Breakout Sessions
Construction Track: Contracting Strategies in the Changing Construction Landscape
Speaker(s): Clay Gilge, Principal – Major Projects Advisory, KPMG; Ken Weigand, Director, Infrastructure & Projects Advisory, KPMG
How do we choose the best contracting strategy and plan for construction projects in turbulent times? Learn about the state of the industry including performance trend highlights, key challenges facing energy owners, and how to choose optimal project delivery and contracting strategy. Learn how to adapt to increasing regulatory scrutiny and risk in the changing landscape in the construction industry.
IT + AnalyticsTrack: SnoPUD's Journey into AWS
Speaker(s): John Norberg, Data & Analytics Consultant, Snohomish County PUD #1; Matt Zyskowski, Sr. Application Analyst, Snohomish County PUD #1
Join the Snohomish County PUD AWS leads for an hour of building momentum in the cloud! Re-energize your IT Staff with emerging skillsets and modern cloud architecture best practices. Learn how to securely and cost-effectively get more workloads in the cloud through low barrier patterns. Now is the time to welcome all your business analysts, data and analytics, and reporting staff to become cloud contributors.
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Lunch
A lunch buffet will be provided.
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Breakout Sessions
Facilitator(s): Krystal DeBruine, Manager, Transmission Project Management Office, Great River Energy
PMO Leadership Track: How Do You Communicate the Value of PMO Related Metrics and Tools to Your Leadership?
Speaker(s): Ezra Richards, Manager of Strategic Project Management, Portland General Electric; Phil Andrew, Senior Director of Utilities, Jacobs; Tony Pagano, Manager of Major Projects, Puget Sound Energy
This session will cover PMO related metrics and tools, specifically discussing how to communicate value to your leadership, and how to assess how well your metrics align to your strategic goals and initiatives.
sponsored by Toba Consulting
IT + Analytics Track: What Data are Utilities Currently Using to Make Decisions in Their Wildfire Management Programs?
Speaker(s): Brett Phillips, Manager, Wildfire Operations Program Management, Portland General Electric; John Norberg, Data Strategy and Analytics Consultant, Snohomish County PUD #1
Many PNW utilities did not have to worry about wildfire mitigation plans a decade ago but now everyone is at risk and utilities are trying to catch up. Come listen to Portland General Electric and Snohomish County PUD#1 discuss what data they are using, compiling and making readily accessible through dashboards as they develop more robust wildfire management programs. Portland General Electric will kick off the session by discussing their compliance needs, the dashboards that help them track required data, and what other data they follow or are discussing whether to follow to build a more complete picture for themselves. Snohomish County PUD#1 will then speak to the weather dashboard they created to aggregate and streamline weather analysis for the wildfire management program. Once examples have been shown, the rest of the session will be open to discussion amongst the room. The speakers can dive deeper into a particular dashboard, or discuss the larger more strategic questions. It is up to the audience to steer the conversation. Let’s learn from each other and share our insights and challenges. This session is appropriate for those who want to learn more, those who have been tasked with the impossible and are overwhelmed, and those who have a few pieces in place but see how many more there are to implement.
2:30 PM - 2:45 PM
Break
2:45 PM - 3:45 PM
Breakout Sessions
IT + Analytics Track: Hot Topics Roundtable Discussion
Facilitator(s): Andru Miller, Senior Security Program Manager – Project Management Office, Avista Utilities
Join us for a lively discussion of some of the Hot Topics facing electric and natural gas utility IT departments. Included on our list are: Security, Carbon Neutrality, Electrification, and How AI is Impacting Your Job.
Construction Track: The Future of Zero Emissions: EV Charging Projects
Facilitator(s): Derrick Draper, Project Director, Black & Veatch
Speaker(s): Anthony Aguirre, Project Manager for Schools, Parks, and Fleet, San Diego Gas & Electric Company; Rick Mihelic, Director of Emerging Technologies, North American Council for Freight Efficiency
SDGE Project Manager Anthony Aquirre will cover lessons learned and project highlights. He will provide a summary of the current EV programs, and cover lessons learned on permits/regulations, supply chain issues, site selection, and placement. NACFE’s Director of Emerging Technologies will present on how the trucking industry is transitioning to a zero emission future for trucking, including electric and hydrogen fueled trucks that are already being deployed across North America.
3:45 PM - 4:00 PM
Break
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Electric Transportation Program - Arizona Public Services Updates
Speaker(s): Elizabeth Lawrence, Manager, Product Development and Strategy, Arizona Public Service Company
Following 2022's much regaled session on the Overview of Arizona Public Safety's Electric Transportation program, this year has Izzy Lawrence sharing how APS partnered with the City of Flagstaff to begin the process to electrify their municipal fleet and how APS designed their proposed managed charging program for residential customers.
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Hosted Networking Reception
7:00 AM - 8:00 AM
Breakfast
Coffee refills and light pastries will be provided at the conference while a full hot breakfast will be provided at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Downtown Portland's main buffet as part of attendee's hotel room reservation.
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM
The Evolving World of Utility Fire Mitigation Strategy
Speaker(s): Dan Nunez, Civil Engineer, Portland General Electric
Each fire season utilities learn more about how to best manage their resources to apply data analysis to assist with predicative modelling and management practices. Come hear utilities describe what data is used, how it is analyzed, and how it impacts decision making during a wildfire season. These are not the same dashboards they were a decade ago.
9:30 AM - 9:45 AM
Break + Hotel Checkout
9:45 AM - 10:45 AM
Breakout Session
Facilitator(s): Scott Roberts, Project Management Improvement Program Lead, Seattle City Light
PMO Leadership Track: Project and Portfolio Prioritization: How Organizations Build a Prioritization Model
Facilitator(s): Scott Roberts, Manager, Project Management Improvement Program, Seattle City Light; Speaker(s): Michelle Kirby, Manager of Enterprise Prioritization, Sacramento Municipal Utility District
How do you tackle creating an enterprise-level prioritization model that includes a diverse portfolio of work? Join SMUD’s Manager of Enterprise Prioritization in this session to review the process, model, and lessons learned from their recent implementation.
sponsored by Toba Consulting
10:45 AM - 11:00 AM
Wrap Up Meeting and Planning for 2024 Project Management + Utilities Conference
Open to all attendees, especially those interested in helping to plan topics for next year's conference.
Please contact the hotel directly at (503) 279-9000 to reserve your room. Identify yourself as being with Western Energy Institute (WEI) to receive a special rate of $189 USD/night. This rate is guaranteed until August 28, 2023 or until the WEI room block is full.