The Annual E&O Conference Recap!

NEPPA held its annual Engineering and Operations conference May 14th and 15th and by all accounts, it was a success. More than 50 vendors, both indoor and outdoor, displayed their wares and connected with participants from all over New England.

The day began with an early registration and pening keynote address by Lee Shelby, who spoke about the events that led to his occupational injury as a lineworker and the profound effect it had on his family, friends and co-workers. He has presented to audiences nation-wide and did not disappoint; this is an issue that is especially personal to our attendees.

Lee was followed by concurrent sessions on Cyber Security, presented by Scott Mossbrooks of N-Dimension Solutions, Inc. and Hoisting License Requirements, presented by Dan Kilburn of the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety. The first, Cyber Security, discussed awareness, testing, plans, and implementation related to this emerging issue. The latter, Hoisting Licenses, brought attendees up to date on new regulations going into effect on September 1st of this year.

To round out the morning, there were two more sessions just before lunch: Transformer Rated Metering Testing and Revenue Protection, given by Eric Hubbard of PowerMetrix, and LED Lighting, by Bob Millard of Eaton. The first highlighted the importance of testing meters at their site, providing examples of common problems and their potential costs to utilities. The second focused on legislative updates from Congress, the Department of Energy and individual states.

Beginning directly after lunch, the Exhibit Hall was opened up and participants were able to connect with the vendors for the afternoon. Included were demonstrations by Yale Cordage and Fleet Electric and a viewing of the Storm Soldiers DVD.

To wrap up the day, Lou Merloni, former Red Sox infielder, greeted the attendees by conducting the raffle, signing autographs, and posing for pictures. (See story on raffle winners and sponsors!)

Day two allowed attendees to focus on OSHA regulations with Carol Bates of OSHA and Mary Dozois of the Mass Dept. of Labor Standards leading the discussion. For engineers, Steve Collier of Hometown Connections presented at a roundtable that discussed the reward of integrating metering, outage management, SCADA and other technologies in today’s public power market.