O'Neill Mangement Consulting, LLC

Home     About Us     Services     Experience     Papers     Conference     Contact Us

Dan O'Neill was the founding and continuing chairman of the industry-leading conference on Emergency Preparedness & Service Restoration for Utilities, which began in May, 2006 (after Katrina in August, 2005). He continued to chair the conference for six consecutive years:


• May, 2006 - Atlanta
  
• March, 2007 - New Orleans
  
• March, 2008 - Atlanta
  
• March, 2009 - Houston
  
• April, 2010 - New Orleans
  
• March, 2011 - Memphis
  

By that time many other conferences began to focus on these issues, including EEI and each of the regional mutual assistance groups.

See the Papers page of this website for Dan O'Neill's presentations from those conferences, and see the sidebar at right for an example of the agenda (from the 2011 conference).

Attendees and speakers at the conferences represented these companies (and many others, including regulators, consultants, and industry vendors):


• Alabama Power/Southern Company
• Allegheny Power
• American Electric Power
• American Transmission Company
• Atlantic City Electric (PHI)
• Baltimore Gas & Electric
• BC Hydro
• Bonneville Power Administration
• CenterPointEnergy
• Central Hudson Gas & Electric
• Central Vermont Public service Company
• Chelan County Public Utility District
• Cleco
• Commonwealth Edison/Exelon
• ConEdison
• Dayton Power & Light
• Detroit Edison
• Dominion/Virginia Power
• Duke Energy
• Duquesne Light
• Electric Power Board of Chattanooga
• Entergy
• Eugene Water & Electric Board
• FirstEnergy
• Florida Power & Light
• Georgia Power/Southern Company
• Georgia Transmission Company
• Green Mountain Power
• Hydro Quebec
• Kansas City Power & Light
• Laclede Gas
• Manitoba Hydro
• Memphis Light, Gas & Water
• Midwest Independent System Operator
• Municipal Light & Power (Anchorage, AK)
• National Grid
• Nebraska Public Power
• New York Power Authority
• Northeast Utilities
• Northwest Power Pool
• NSTAR
• Oncor
• Orlando Utilities Commission
• Pacific Gas & Electric
• PacifiCorp
• Pennsylvania Power & Light (PPL)
• Potomac Electric Power Company (Pepco/PHI)
• Philadelphia Electric Company/Exelon
• Progress Energy
• Public Service Electric & Gas (PSEG)
• Puget Sound Energy
• Rocky Mountain Power(PacifiCorp)
• Sacramento Municipal Utility District
• Southern California Edison
• Southern Company
• Southwestern Electric Co-op
• SP AusNet (Australia)
• St John Energy
• Tacoma Power
• Talquin Electric Co-op
• Tennessee Valley Authority
• Tokyo Electric Power
• Toronto Hydro
• Vermont Electric Power Company (VELCO)
• Washington-St Tammany Electric Co-op
• Westar Energy
• US Department of Energy
• US Department of Homeland Security

6th Annual Conference on Emergency Preparedness & Service Restoration for Utilities
March 16-18, 2011, Memphis
Agenda


• Wednesday, March 16th
  
• 12:30 PM Check-in (get badge, find a seat, meet fellow attendees)
  
  
• 1:00 PM Welcome to Memphis - Jerry Collins, CEO, Memphis Gas Light & Water
  
  
• Overview of the conference - Dan O'Neill, Chairman
  
  
• Introductions and learning goals - Attendees
  
  
• 1:45 PM DHS's Voluntary Private Sector Preparedness Program, PS-Prep - Jim Caverly of DHS has co-presented a joint DHS/EEI webinar on this topic and will review the program with us and engage in a discussion - R. James Caverly, Director, Partnership and Outreach Division, Department of Homeland Security
  
  
• 2:45 PM Setup for Tabletop Exercise - Objectives, ground rules, roles, and cues - Dan O'Neill, Charlie Fijnvandraat, O'Neill Management Consulting, LLC
  
  
• 3:00 PM Break for networking, communication, and 'human factors'
  
  
• 3:30 PM Tabletop Exercise - A live simulation of a utility's response to a major event, with attendees playing roles and/or observing and critiquing
  
  
• 5:00 PM Lessons Learned from Tabletop Exercise - Group Discussion
  
  
• 5:45 PM Break
  
  
• 6:00 PM Reception (refreshments only)
  
  
• Thursday, March 17th
  
  
• 8:00 AM Continental Breakfast
  
  
• 8:30 AM Review of Major Events in 2010 and Associated Regulatory Activity - Each year we take a look back at the major events in North America and note the associated regulatory activity, e.g., audits, get-well programs, etc. - Dan O'Neill and Charlie Fijnvandraat, O'Neill Management Consulting
  
  
• 9:30 AM Achieving Customer Satisfaction with Communication about Outages - Based on his work with three utilities and an industrywide research consortium, a consultant remarks on ways to improve outage communication, including ERT's - Charlie Fijnvandraat, O'Neill Management Consulting
  
  
• 10:30 AM Break
  
  
• 11:00 AM Organizing for Emergency Management: How different organizations will organize differently regarding Emergency Management, Business Continuity, Risk Management, Storm Operations, Mutual Assistance, etc. - A panel discussion among the speakers, with audience participation, including some who have been through mergers and reorganizations of the EM function
  
  
• 12:00 PM Lunch on site (included)
  
  
• 1:30 PM Advances in Timely and Locationally Accurate Weather Forecasting - The latest in the continual quest for better weather data, this time from a company that has installed special instruments on hundreds of commuter airplanes to gather tropospheric data at more times and more places than NOAA weather balloons - James Ladd, CEO, AirDat LLC
  
  
• 2:30 PM Process Assessment and Improvement in NU's E911 Program - NU saw a need to re-visit its program for handling emergency calls from police, fire, and the public (wire down, fires, etc.). They approached the problem systematically and achieved results - Mike Zappone, Manager, System Restoration and Emergency Preparedness. Northeast Utilities
  
  
• 3:30 PM Break
  
  
• 4:00 PM Innovations in Restoration - Two recent developments that help companies respond to inquiries about storms - using observers to log the way you handled the storm in the control room, and using forensic analysis to determine why damage was what it was. Bob Grant, CEO, River Consulting Group
  
  
• 5:00 PM Innovations in Mutual Aid and Logistics - Insights from the only company that belongs to four different mutual assistance conferences - Jim Nowak, Manager, Emergency Restoration Planning, AEP
  
  
• 6:00 PM Adjourn for the day
  
  
• 7:00 PM Bus to Beale Street (Happy St. Patrick's Day)
  
  
• 9:30 PM Bus from Beale Street
  
  
• Friday, March 18th
  
  
• 8:00 AM Continental Breakfast
  
  
• 8:30 AM Lessons Learned from Preparing for the 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto - It seems that more and more utilities are having to prepare and manage through major events associated with a convention, Olympics, or international meeting. These events are definitely not handled like 'business as usual' and there are great lessons to be learned from each - Suzanne Bernier, Manager, Emergency Management, Toronto Hydro
  
  
• 9:30 AM Lessons Learned - Snow and Ice in the South! - On the second weekend of January, 2011, Entergy saw the threat of severe snow and ice forecast for their territory. They 'pulled the trigger', mobilized assistance, and weathered the storm well, with more lessons learned for others in similar circumstances - Mike Fricke, Manager, System Outage Response, Entergy
  
  
• 10:30 AM Break
  
  
• 11:00 AM Lessons Learned - Managing Near-Miss Major Events - In the Atlantic, the year 2010 had the most named storms since 2005, and the third most in history (tied with 1995 and 1887), but many of them missed the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Still, they triggered extensive mobilizations in some instances, e.g., Alex, Earl, with valuable lessons learned about how and when to call up and then stand down - Jim Nowak, Manager, Emergency Restoration Planning, AEP
  
  
• 12:00 PM Wrap-up and Adjourn (The Fogelman Executive Conference Center provides complimentary shuttles to and from the Memphis airport. Just let them know)