Welcome to the new Energy Central — same great community, now with a smoother experience. To login, use your Energy Central email and reset your password.

Home
Energy Central Podcasts
Energy Central Podcasts
 · Posted in Home

Episode #175: "Safeguarding Today's Grid from Modern Threats" with Brian Harrell, Vice President and Chief Security Officer at AVANGRID [an Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast]

Be sure to sign into your Energy Central account (register for free here) to access this full post with the podcast recording.

As cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure have more than doubled since the pandemic, ensuring that utility security teams stay multiple steps ahead of bad actors remains as important and also as difficult as ever. While the common customer of a power company may not see any changes from their daily experience, the cybersecurity control centers at utilities are constantly expanding, improving, and focusing on what may come next. To help our utility professional listeners keep pace with this quickly evolving area of the industry, this episode of the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast features one of the foremost experts in the field, Brian Harrell, Vice President and Chief Security Officer at AVANGRID.

Brian oversees cybersecurity, privacy, physical security, threat management, and business continuity for AVANGRID, bringing with him a wealth of experience from both the public and private sectors. Listen in to join podcast host Jason Price and produce Matt Chester to learn from Brian about his insights on the current state of threats and the essential measures needed to protect our grid from both external and internal dangers. Discover best practices in addressing vulnerabilities, the intersection of physical and cyber security, and how AVANGRID is leading the way in securing our nation's energy infrastructure. Whether you're a utility professional or concerned about the future of energy security, this episode offers vital information and expert perspectives you won't want to miss.

Prefer to Read vs. Listening? Scroll Down to Read Transcript

Thanks to the sponsor of this episode of the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast: West Monroe

 

Key Links:

Brian Harrell's profile on Energy Central: https://energycentral.com/member/profile/brian-harrell

Ask a Question to Our Future Guests: Do you have a burning question for the utility executives and energy industry thought leaders that we feature each week on the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast? Do you want to hear your voice on a future episode? Well starting in 2024, we’re offering you that opportunity! Head to this link where you can leave us a recorded message, including a question you’re eager to have answered on a future episode of the podcast. We’ll listen through them, pick out the right guests in our upcoming lineup to address them, and you’ll hear yourself as a part of the conversation! Energy Central on SpeakPipe: www.speakpipe.com/EnergyCentralPodcast 

 

 

TRANSCRIPT

Jason Price:

According to the IMF, since the pandemic, cyber attacks have more than doubled and our nation's critical infrastructure is under attack. That said, the attacks are not only external, but also from within. How do we protect our grid from rogue nations and clandestine armies, but also from disgruntled employees or simply by accident and leading to unintended consequences? We will cover this with one of the leading minds on the subject next on Power Perspectives.

This is of course, the Energy Central Power Perspectives podcast where we continue to bring leading minds from the energy industry into the podcast booth to discuss the challenges and trends that are transforming and modernizing our energy system. And our listeners can now submit a recorded question to a future podcast episode. Just look for the SpeakPipe link in the show notes below this episode, and leave us a voicemail with a question for a future guest.

I am Jason Price, Energy Central podcast host and director with West Monroe, coming to you from New York City. And with me as always, from Orlando, Florida, its Energy Central producer and community manager, Matt Chester. Matt, what insights have been coming from the Energy Central community as it relates to security of the grid and its infrastructure?

 

Matt Chester:

Thanks for that question, Jason. And perusing the Energy Central community recently has shown that our members have been deeply engaged in discussions about grid security. And that focuses specifically on the challenges of cyber threats, the need for robust physical infrastructure and the implementation of technologies like advanced monitoring. And our community largely emphasizes the importance of proactive measures and collaboration among the utility companies as a way to enhance the resilience and the reliability of the grid.

 

Jason Price:

Thanks, Matt, and we'll dive in more deeply during today's episode. So first, I want to give a thank you to West Monroe, our sponsor of today's show. And now let's introduce our guest, Brian Harrell. Brian currently serves as vice president and chief security officer at Avangrid, where he oversees cyber security, privacy, physical security, threat management, and business continuity for the energy company operating in 25 states.

With a background including serving as the sixth assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the United States Department of Homeland Security, Brian brings a wealth of experience from both the public and private sectors in safeguarding critical infrastructure. And he's got a lot to say about our current risks and the best ways to prepare for them. So let's bring him into the podcast booth. Brian Harrell, welcome to Power Perspectives.

 

Brian Harrell:

Thank you so much. Great to be here. Given all that's happening in the national security space, this is a timely topic. So thanks for having me.

 

Jason Price:

And we're thrilled to have you. Brian, I only gave you a brief introduction, so perhaps you could start by giving a bit more of your background and experience in the utility and cyber security space.

 

Brian Harrell:

Well, sure. I'm a energy guy through and through. While I've spent some time in the military, I was a regulator, spent some time in the public sector, my home is in the private sector trying to keep critical infrastructure safe. So I've spent some time at NERC, the Electricity ISAC, Duke Energy, now here at Avangrid as well. And it's a pleasure to serve in this industry. We're doing a lot of great things. We're making good investments for reducing risk. So thanks again for having me.

 

Jason Price:

You bet. So the topic of security for the grid, both cyber security and physical security won't come out of left field for our audience as utilities are by and large prioritizing security these days. But in our lead-up calls, you contend that the situation may be more critical than maybe the wider industry is treating it. So tell us about it. Tell us about the current state of threats as you see them and what it means for the power sector.

 

Brian Harrell:

I'll make this statement right up front, and that is I think we've made the right investments in reducing risk. I will put the energy sector up against any other sectors. However, the threat landscape is changing. It's a blended threat landscape between digital and physical threats today.

Some of the big threats out there for me, my organization, and some of the investments that we're making really center around domestic violent extremists, third-party supply chain, those interdependencies between us in the energy sector and other sectors like telecommunications, the water sector, critical manufacturing. I think we've done a great job of taking some of that low-hanging fruit off of the cyber tree, but there's still a lot of work to be done. There's still a lot of good investments that need to be made, a lot of tools to come online to help us better understand and monitor our critical systems.

And one of the things that I think we have been successful with understanding that threat landscape is having a great and robust relationship with our federal partners. We'll talk a little bit about this a little bit later I assume, however, that intelligence that we're receiving from federal space, from the Electricity ISAC, we're immediately taking that information, making some changes. We're adding mitigation measures, we're making the right investments to ultimately reduce risk, to protect our people, our infrastructure and our information.

 

Jason Price:

Yeah, for sure. And before we drill down to more utility-focused discussions, I want to point out that your career has seen you playing a similar security-focused role in other industries. What lessons do you think there are for utility leaders to learn from other areas of critical infrastructure? And more importantly, are there any practices, utilities are doing better and can be exported to other industries?

 

Brian Harrell:

Yeah. I feel like, I hate to say this, but maybe I've been around the block a few times, and so I've seen some lessons learned out there, not only from the energy space, but also from my time at the Department of Homeland Security, at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation and others.

I'll start by suggesting that within my portfolio we have cyber security, physical security, intelligence, business continuity, resilience, a lot of the things that produce risk for an organization. And so we're very focused on, of course, risk reduction, but also ensuring that we are not seen as Darth Vader, that department of no. We are continuing to try to be business enablers. Within security, we serve the business. At the end of the day, our job is to ensure that the lights are always on, we have a reliable and secure system for our customers.

Some of those lessons learned, I think over the years though, really revolve around intelligence and understanding what the tactics, techniques, and procedures are from our nation state adversaries overseas. China is not our friend. Russia is an adversary. You throw in Iran and North Korea and those are four large countries that are looking to destroy and engage with critical infrastructure owners and operators. It is the critical infrastructure owners and operators that are at the pointy end of the spear.

I often say when I give speeches around the country, the calvary is not coming. There isn't this government agency that is waiting for you to have an issue, and then they fly in with their black helicopters, repel down to try and rid you of your malware or whatever security concern you have. You have to be able to do it today with your people, with your vendors, with the investments and the tools that you have made today to try and come back to homeostasis as quick as we possibly can.

And so we're doing that through intelligence. Everything we do today is intelligence driven. All of our products, all of our services, the investments that we're making. It has a tie to the threat landscape that is out there as we see it or as our federal partners are feeding it to us.

I'll add as well, we have embraced convergence. What does that mean? IT, OT, physical security, that threat landscape today is very blended. Rarely do you see a cyber-only attack or a physical-only attack. They are blended, they have interdependencies, and they are bleeding into each other's space. And so we have built an organization that has responded to that. Organizationally, we are structured so that when any threat, doesn't matter what kind it is, comes in, we have the ability to quickly put people, subject matter expertise, and tools on mitigating that threat.

Long gone are the days where cybersecurity reports to the CIO or physical security reports to operations, and the OT system, data systems, industrial control systems are on an island all by themselves. Today it's very, very blended and we have created an organization that allows us to be faster when it comes to minimizing and mitigating threats.

 

Jason Price:

Yeah, it has to be more integrated. That makes complete sense. So curious, can you share or can you elaborate on some of these methods or tactics that these nations state adversaries do to try to compromise our critical infrastructure?

 

Brian Harrell:

Yeah. As I've mentioned, I think the energy sector at large has done a good job of doing a lot of the basics. We're doing multifactor authentication, we're very mindful of phishing attempts. Our training and awareness programs are very robust. But I think that new enemy avenue of approach, if you will, to get into any system that is relatively hardened, we've become a hard target, I think that new approach is to go after your third parties. It's your vendors, it's your consultants that the enemy is going to look to try and exploit in hopes that there is a connection, there's a weak link, there's a remote access link possibly to get into your system.

So I say all of this really to suggest that your third parties that you're doing business with frankly need to be just as secure as you. I've often in years past, gone out and done a number of field trips with a lot of our vendors, people that we're in a business relationship with just to see are they as secure as they say they are in their procurement documentation, in that contract that we've all signed? And I think you would be shocked to learn that they're not nearly as secure as we all thought that they were.

And so urging and championing your vendors and your consultants and your third parties to be as secure as they possibly can, really better protects the entire ecosystem. But that is the new enemy avenue of approach. This is where we really need to be focusing our efforts on.

 

Jason Price:

That's very interesting. So Brian, I do want to ask you a question that may be a bit unconventional, but here it goes. And that is, if a nation state physically attacked America, we declare war, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, there's precedence, okay? A cyber attack to take down our critical infrastructure is just as ruthless. Why do we differentiate a physical over a cyber attack, and should we?

 

Brian Harrell:

I think that answer is probably a little murky, certainly murkier than it probably should be. But the quick gut reaction answer is it is difficult in cyberspace to definitively provide attribution to the who did it, the who done it. Yes, if it's a nation state adversary and they're very obvious in the tactics that they utilize, maybe we can provide attribution. But when it's a third party, it's a splinter group, it's a hacking group that isn't necessarily tied to the nation state itself, it becomes very difficult trying to assign attribution.

So even if we were to assign attribution and then do some sort of retribution and attack them back, it would not come immediately. It would come well after we can definitively say who did it. And that takes some time. And I think the American public, the world public, this is still new battle space for everyone and we still haven't really wrapped our head around what that might look like. And so it's going to be slow to assign attribution.

 

Jason Price:

I want to talk about your role. So as the chief security officer for Avangrid, you certainly have a unique perspective on the intersection of physical and cybersecurity within the energy sector. So could you discuss some best practices that are currently being implemented to address vulnerabilities in both areas?

 

Brian Harrell:

Well, yeah, I absolutely will. And I don't know that I necessarily created these. As a matter of fact, I probably stole them from other great subject matter experts and other organizations that I think are doing really good things. We do not own the corner market on great ideas.

However, we run our organization with full and complete transparency, and we start every single morning with what's called the DUB, or the daily update brief. And at 0900 hours, I have cybersecurity, physical security, intelligence, insider threats, emergency preparedness, you name it, they're all on the phone. And we talk a little bit about what just happened in the last 24 hours and what do we anticipate. There's that A word that I use a lot, anticipate. What do we anticipate in the next 24 hours? And we just walk and talk through what it is that we're seeing.

And it ensures that the entire portfolio is rowing in the same direction. And it has removed, I think, from the lexicon and the verbiage that one might use throughout the day, and that is, "Well, I didn't know that was happening." Now everyone understands what is happening on our system at any given moment. And so I think that's one of the best practices that we've utilized. And in full disclosure, I stole that from my time at the Department of Homeland Security.

But I think another one that we're trying to utilize in a much greater way today is additional exercises. So back in 2011, we created the grid security exercise, or GridEx, when I was at NERC. And there is a lot to be proud of, and that's a really good national level exercise. But I have really worked to make our exercise program local and tailored and very specific to the Avangrid system. And so we're trying to do a much greater job at doing exercises quarterly, certainly annually.

As a matter of fact, we have one coming up in just a couple months, and it's the third iteration of our next active shooter exercise. It's a full-scale active shooter exercise with law enforcement, with EMS, with fire. And we are walking and talking in real time with full-scale deployment with our partners to minimize and mitigate an active shooter.

This did not come easy. I think in our industry there's still a lot of concern and cultural concerns surrounding, are we ready for this? It's kind of a scary moment, but we said, "You know what? We have to move forward." Every single week on the news, we're watching active shooter scenarios play out in real life. And frankly, we need to be ready for that. We need to have our staff prepared for what does run, hide, fight look like? What does it feel like when law enforcement shows up, code 3, lights and sirens and guns on their hip trying to eliminate the threat? Let's prepare our people. That is our job to ensure that everyone is well-positioned and well-prepared, and number one, survive, and number two, ensure that we have a well-trained staff moving forward.

So that's active shooter, but similarly, given our portfolio, we're doing a lot of cybersecurity exercises as well. Also, at the end of the year in Q4, we're going to do a tabletop exercise surrounding ransomware. That's a big ticket item that we're seeing in the news play out quite routinely. And so we're going to walk and talk and prepare ourselves through response and recovery actions and plans. How do we prepare ourselves for a potential ransomware event? And so this will be done at the CEO level, and security and every cat and dog you can think of is going to be sitting around the table as we walk through response and recovery and mitigation for ransomware.

And then lastly, I'll just add, I think a big part of our success, if you will, is our relationship with our federal partners. We can't do this in a silo. We can't do this ourselves. We have to embrace collective defense. What impacts you, impacts me. What impacts me possibly impacts the federal, state, and local governments. So there's an understanding that we're all in this together.

And so we're sharing information preferably before that CNN moment to where we can all get on the same page and we can minimize and mitigate before it becomes a full-blown event or threat that is going to provide us a difficult day. So having those relationships under blue sky conditions is absolutely critical.

 

Jason Price:

That's certainly a robust and comprehensive approach. Thank you for sharing that. Brian, is there anything that Avangrid is doing that's unique that you'd like to share that the rest of the industry could perhaps follow or consider?

 

Brian Harrell:

I will. I think one of the feathers in our cap that we have really gravitated towards over the last few years is also understanding that there is a lot happening in the national security space in Washington, D.C. As a matter of fact, you cannot walk through that city and throw a rock without hitting a new standard, a new guideline, somebody talking about new regulation.

And so with that understanding, we have stood up internally within corporate security, a policy shop or at least a couple of individuals that are focused on national security policy, what's happening at DHS with CISA, with DOE's CESER, with the FBI. And so what we are trying to do is instead of being always in react mode, we are trying to inform the conversation. We're trying to provide subject matter expertise to our federal partners so that whatever does come out is better informed, it reduces risk, it doesn't add regulatory redundancy. And frankly, we're helping our federal partners come out with smarter solutions.

 

Jason Price:

Brian, if I may, I'd like to turn the conversation to more of a local approach, and that is looking at Avangrid. And I'd love to hear how do you approach this area of security, the conversation with your employees? How do you get them thinking about these levels of risk by balancing the sensitivity of what you're trying to accomplish on a day to day as a company?

 

Brian Harrell:

Insider risk is still a sensitive topic. We're trying to prevent issues before they become a full-blown event. And so we have invested heavily over the last number of years into our insider risk portfolio, having tools out there that are monitoring our system. We're very engaged with our employees both on the cyber side but also on the physical security side. When a threat of violence, when a workplace violence episode materializes, security is immediately engaged. And we're trying to again, be a resource to the business.

But it is a sensitive topic, and the way that we have, I think been successful is, yes, we have tools and yes, we care about the topic, but we've also done a good job of governance and socialization, and we have everyone, I think, feeling comfortable that while we have a program, we're all on the front lines of keeping critical infrastructure secure.

From the CEO to the person in a bucket truck to the executive assistant who's sitting out in the cubicle right now, we are all on the front lines of keeping critical infrastructure secure. And so we all play a role. And I think that socialization, that training and awareness has really, I think better defined and better helped the culture here at Avangrid with the understanding that, yeah, we as an organization are really going to care about security.

Now, if you go back into the way back machine, back in the '90s, we as an industry really focused on safety. We didn't want people getting killed. We didn't want people getting maimed. Safety was issue number one, and it continues to be issue number one. But I'm also trying to position security to be 1.1 or 1.2 in that it's just as important, terrorism awareness, understanding that again, we're all on the front lines, we're all in this together. See something, say something. It's absolutely critical that every employee is a part of the solution and not just Brian and the corporate security team.

 

Jason Price:

Yeah, basically it can't just be top down. It has to be from bottom up. No doubt. Earlier you mentioned intelligence gathering. I'd like to explore that a little bit. So what are some common practices for your intelligence team and how does that play a role in the broader security landscape?

 

Brian Harrell:

At the end of the day, I think we're just trying to get ahead of the CNN moment. There's a lot happening in this space. You can't go an hour without seeing a new intelligence product, something blip across the TV screen, that there's some sort of a new threat, a new ransomware group, a new nation state adversary that is targeting critical infrastructure. And so intelligence is absolutely critical to, I think, anyone's success in the energy sector.

So our relationships with the FBI, DHS, the CIA, the NSA are playing a leading role in our products and our services to the OpCos or the operational companies that we have here within Avangrid. A part of that success has been hiring the right people. A lot of the folks that we have here within corporate security have that background from our federal partners, from intelligence organizations. And so they're able to reach out back into their Rolodex from a previous life and get information Johnny on the spot, most ricky-tick, that we're able to immediately consume, dissect, and do something with.

Now, at the end of the day, there's a lot of intelligence products out there, and some are good, some are bad, but there's so much that it has become white noise. And so the challenge that I think we have within our own organization, and really my challenge to our federal partners is the, "Well, so what? How does this impact me? How does this impact my system? What does this do for our crown jewels that we're trying to protect?" There really needs to be a so what behind every product out there. And that I think is the key to any kind of intelligent success.

 

Jason Price:

Yeah, see, Brian, you are the right person for the job because you already anticipated my next question, and that is you touched upon talent and the workforce. I want to dive into that more. There doesn't go an episode where we don't talk about this because it's such an important issue facing the utility and energy space, especially when you're competing with Silicon Valley and Wall Street and so on to find talent. So I'd love for you to talk about if you can, how does Avangrid attract and retain top security talent and what unique aspects of the company's mission and culture help differentiate it in the talent market?

 

Brian Harrell:

I think we're all competing for the same resources and talent. Avangrid is competing with the utilities to our left and right, but we're also competing against other critical infrastructure companies, the financial sector, the water sector, but also our federal partners as well. My old organization, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA within DHS, they're trying to hire thousands of new young talent to come on in to help them with their mission as being America's cyber agency. And so we're competing for that same talent.

One of the things that I think we have as an advantage in the utility space is this idea of mission. Every single day I get up in the morning knowing that we are protecting critical infrastructure, we're protecting our people, we're protecting our information, and that motivates me. I'm not selling you a product. I'm not trying to get you to buy the next whiz bang thing. We are keeping critical infrastructure secure. We are ensuring that the power that goes to our customers is reliable and secure every single day.

And that is a very strong message to anyone who cares about their electricity, cares about the protection of our country. And so we tap into that and we will reach out to military veterans. We'll reach out to local colleges and universities with that particular message. But we're all competing for the same talent in this space. And at times we have good days, and at times we have bad days because there's only so many resources to go around.

But right now, we have great relationships with the University of Maine. We have great relationships with Rochester Institute for Technology as an example, and we have shook hands to suggest that we want a relationship with you. And so that when you graduate high quality graduates from your cybersecurity program, have them give Avangrid a look because we have a lot to offer. We are squarely in the renewable space, green energy, and that excites a lot of people. We're making billions and billions of dollars of investments in offshore wind, onshore wind, solar, your traditional networks type security, and there's a lot to be excited there.

And I think part of it as the CFO, sometimes it stands for chief security officer, but oftentimes it stands for chief storytelling officer as well. So relating those key messages and getting people motivated is partly how I think we've been successful.

 

Jason Price:

That's a good call out. I'm glad you brought up the whole green energy and the renewables. Avangrid is a leader in that space, and you're right, it probably is a great way to attract new talent who also take that seriously.

So Brian, this has been an amazing conversation and we are going to give you the last word, but we've hit a point in the podcast where we call this the lightning round, which gives us an opportunity to learn a little bit more about you, the person, rather than you, the professional. We've got a series of questions, I think five or six that we'll throw at you, and we ask you to respond with one word or phrase. So are you ready?

 

Brian Harrell:

I think I'm ready. The challenge will be one word or phrase, I guess.

 

Jason Price:

All right. Well, what's your go-to album playlist or radio station for a road trip?

 

Brian Harrell:

Oh, wow. No doubt, George Strait and Alan Jackson and any kind of old school country.

 

Jason Price:

Best gift you ever received?

 

Brian Harrell:

Goodness, an umbrella believe it or not. I was stationed in San Diego, I was a US Marine. It never rains in San Diego, however, that day I'm in uniform and it pours and I'm walking along the street and somebody pulls over, gets out of their car and hands me an umbrella, gets back in their car, drives away, and I'm dry-ish for the remainder of the day. Probably one of the best gifts I've ever received.

 

Jason Price:

That's an amazing story. I love that. What is the most common cyber mistake people make?

 

Brian Harrell:

Oh, wow. The easy things I can point to, not including multifactor authentication, deciding to not patch their systems because they're older legacy systems. We got to get beyond that. But I think the biggest mistake is hoping that they don't receive an attack. I'll tell you that hope is not a strategy. We need to be ready.

 

Jason Price:

We're collecting lightning round questions from past podcast guests to ask future guests. And so this one comes from Cynthia Klein at Duke Energy, and I'm curious of your take. She noted that we just saw the recent passing of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and posited the following. If you want to see a 2.0 version of this legislation come through, then what funding opportunities would you want to see included? Is there a security angle to such a major legislation in government investment, Brian?

 

Brian Harrell:

Great question, Cynthia. And for the record, Duke Energy is one of the best companies in the world, so thank you for your question. I'm going to say one thing I would love to see is significant or at least better investment and funds into helping municipal water companies better secure their cyber risk. This might seem a little off-topic, however, we all drink water and I want the faith and confidence as a US citizen that nothing bad or nefarious is ever going to happen from a cyber perspective to my drinking water.

 

Jason Price:

That's a great question. Now it's your turn. What lightning round question do you want challenge a future guest to answer? It can be topical and related to energy, or it can be an off the wall question.

 

Brian Harrell:

Well, I think I'm going to go just a little bit off the wall and ask, if you weren't in security or you weren't a utility professional, what profession would you be doing?

 

Jason Price:

Okay. And lastly, what are you most motivated by?

 

Brian Harrell:

I'm motivated by the future. We have a lot of great individuals here at Avangrid. We have a lot of great young individuals in the national security space that wake up, eat, breathe, and sleep keeping people safe and secure. And it has started from a very young generation now. It's not a bunch of old people like me, former law enforcement, former military, who are on their second and third careers. No. We have young people that care about this country and want to keep key and critical systems safe and secure. I'm very motivated by that.

 

Jason Price:

Absolutely. And you certainly are championing in a very important area of the utility industry that deserves a lot more attention than even we're giving it. So thank you, Brian, for this insight and just sharing your thoughtful responses to each of our questions. And as I said, we're going to give you the final word.

So knowing that you've got industry leaders who are listening to the podcast, what is the closing thought that they should be taking away from this discussion? And more importantly, what are some proactive steps that Avangrid is taking to address those future risks?

 

Brian Harrell:

I'm going to say back to what I said maybe earlier, and that is that hope is not a strategy. Be ready, exercise it, walk through the steps to response and recovery and do it right now under blue sky conditions. The last thing we want to do is be handing out our business cards and/or creating our crisis response plan in the midst of an actual crisis. We need to be ready now.

So exercise, ensure the right people are sitting around the table. Make sure you have everyone's input. In this space, particularly the cybersecurity space, diversity of thought is incredibly important. So ensuring that you're hearing from everyone and you have your detractors out there as well. I love detractors. The detractors are constantly raising their hand and say, "Yeah, but have we thought about X, Y, and Z?" The detractors and the yeah buts, make our product, make our services stronger in the end. So embrace that.

 

Jason Price:

Those are excellent points. Brian, I have no doubt that you're going to get a lot of questions and comments from the Energy Central community and maybe you'll get some resumes too, that'll come through. So I hope you stay engaged and keep the conversation going. And until then, we just want to thank you for sharing your insights with us on today's episode of the podcast.

 

Brian Harrell:

Well, thanks for having me. I know your listeners take these issues seriously, and I hope I added to the conversation.

 

Jason Price:

Oh, you sure did. And you can always reach Brian through the Energy Central platform where he welcomes your questions and comments. And we also want to give a shout-out of thanks to the podcast sponsors that made today's episode possible. Thanks to West Monroe. West Monroe is a leading partner for the nation's largest electric gas and water utilities working together to drive grid modernization, clean energy, and workforce transformation. West Monroe's comprehensive services are designed to support utilities in advancing their digital transformation, building resilient operations, securing federal funding, and providing regulatory advisory support. With a multidisciplinary team of experts, West Monroe offers a holistic approach that addresses the challenges of the grid today and provides innovative solutions for a sustainable future.

Once again, I'm your host, Jason Price. Plug in and stay fully charged in the discussion by hopping into the community at energycentral.com. And we'll see you next time at the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast.

 

About Energy Central Podcasts

The ‘Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast’ features conversations with thought leaders in the utility sector. At least twice monthly, we connect with an Energy Central Power Industry Network community member to discuss compelling topics that impact professionals who work in the power industry. Some podcasts may be a continuation of thought-provoking posts or discussions started in the community or with an industry leader that is interested in sharing their expertise and doing a deeper dive into hot topics or issues relevant to the industry.

The ‘Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast’ is the premiere podcast series from Energy Central, a Power Industry Network of Communities built specifically for professionals in the electric power industry and a place where professionals can share, learn, and connect in a collaborative environment. Supported by leading industry organizations, our mission is to help global power industry professionals work better. Since 1995, we’ve been a trusted news and information source for professionals working in the power industry, and today our managed communities are a place for lively discussions, debates, and analysis to take place. If you’re not yet a member, visit www.EnergyCentral.com to register for free and join over 200,000 of your peers working in the power industry.

The Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast is hosted by Jason Price, Community Ambassador of Energy Central. Jason is a Business Development Executive at West Monroe, working in the East Coast Energy and Utilities Group. Jason is joined in the podcast booth by the producer of the podcast, Matt Chester, who is also the Community Manager of Energy Central and energy analyst/independent consultant in energy policy, markets, and technology.  

If you want to be a guest on a future episode of the Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast, let us know! We’ll be pulling guests from our community members who submit engaging content that gets our community talking, and perhaps that next guest will be you! Likewise, if you see an article submitted by a fellow Energy Central community member that you’d like to see broken down in more detail in a conversation, feel free to send us a note to nominate them.  For more information, contact us at [email protected]. Podcast interviews are free for Expert Members and professionals who work for a utility.  We have package offers available for solution providers and vendors. 

Happy listening, and stay tuned for our next episode! Like what you hear, have a suggestion for future episodes, or a question for our guest? Leave a note in the comments below.

All new episodes of the Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast will be posted to the relevant Energy Central community group, but you can also subscribe to the podcast at all the major podcast outlets, including:

2 replies