Join other Leadership Meeting attendees for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres.

Attending the Forum for the first time? Join us to learn how to get the most out of your Forum experience.

If you are joining us from the northern part of North America, be sure to attend this special Canadian-only reception. This gathering precedes the main Welcome Reception where you’ll get the chance to meet other Forum attendees.

Welcome to Denver! Kick off your Forum experience by joining us for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres while mingling with other attendees.

Continue networking with other Leadership Meeting participants over dinner! (Complimentary to Leadership Meeting attendees, but preregistration is requested.)

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The business model for utilities, built primarily for a centralized and growing infrastructure, is fraying rapidly. Third-party generation, decentralized renewables, the smart grid, energy efficiency, and environmental concerns are all taking their toll. The utility industry must develop fundamentally new strategies to meet broadening customer demands, incorporate new technologies, and ensure profitable operations. We’ll be interviewing industry leaders about their ideas for meeting this bold new utility challenge.

Bill LeBlanc, Senior Advisor, E Source
Ron Binz, Principal, Public Policy Consulting
Ralph Cavanagh, Codirector, Energy Program, Natural Resources Defense Council
Gene Rodrigues, Director, Customer Energy Efficiency and Solar, Southern California Edison

A new and refreshing paradigm is emerging in the utility industry—customers can no longer be taken for granted. Focusing on the entire customer experience pays dividends toward both the brand and the bottom line. In this session, you’ll learn how utilities at different stages of the customer experience metamorphosis are transforming their cultures, enabling them to serve their customers better, faster, and more cheaply.

Justin Rickard, Research Manager, E Source
Edward Chao, Customer Products and Experience Manager, ComEd
Kelly Frankenfeld, Marketing Director, Xcel Energy
Tracy Kirk, Manager Process Integration, Customer Technology, Public Service Electric and Gas Co.

Since their inception, demand-side management (DSM) programs have been intensely scrutinized by regulators and evaluators. Currently, the debate over how utilities might most effectively organize themselves to capture greater energy and demand savings seems more intense than at any time in recent memory. A panel of seasoned DSM veterans will discuss efforts to move beyond old paradigms and explore creative new ways to think about DSM technologies, program design, the regulatory environment, evaluations, and partnerships.

Kate Drexler, Senior Research Associate, E Source
Adam Maxwell, Product Manager, E Source
Jan Berman, Senior Director, Customer Energy Solutions, Pacific Gas and Electric Company
Ron Binz, Principal, Public Policy Consulting
Bob Schimmenti, Vice President, Consolidated Edison Company, Inc.
Tim Stout, Director, Research, E Source

Got the marketing doldrums? Need inspiration for your 2013 strategic marketing plan? Join us to gain insights from creative marketing professionals from inside and outside the utility industry who will push you beyond your existing marketing techniques … and help you think outside the box. You’ll walk away from this session with fresh marketing ideas and new perspectives to take back to your organization.

Kim Burke, Associate Research Director, E Source
Mike Sukle, Sukle Advertising & Design
Kim Thompson, Marketing Manager, Bonneville Power Administration
Christopher Wilshire, Egg Strategy

Come explore recent developments that have the potential to dramatically reduce the cost of finding and maintaining energy-saving opportunities in commercial buildings. We’ll look at retrofit hardware products for rooftop air conditioners that can provide the means to improve current operation and to track future performance. Next, we’ll examine software products that enable the end user and the utility to track and analyze building energy use and to perform fault detection and diagnostics.

Lee Hamilton, Research Associate, E Source
Peter Criscione, Research Manager, E Source
Jay Stein, Executive Vice President, E Source

Utilities have been using social media as a marketing, communications, and customer service tool for a number of years now, but in many cases the focus has been on damage control and crisis management with little attention given to the bigger picture. Now that many utilities have matured in their use of social media, more strategic decisions have paved the way for successes beyond the disasters that garner so much attention. Learn from the experts as they talk about how their use of social media has evolved over the years and where they are headed in the future.

Stephanie Spalding, Research Manager, E Source
Nicole Benvenuto, Social Media Channel Manager, Florida Power & Light
Dianne Hanlon-Druyff, Executive Director, Strategic Services, Kelliher Samets Volk
Eric Isaacson, Senior Public Affairs Specialist, Colorado Springs Utilities
Emily Johnson, Social Media Experience Lead, National Grid

When approaching customers about building performance, are you facing the harsh realities of tight capital budgets and stringent payback criteria? One way to address these challenges is to go higher on the decision ladder, moving your conversations from the “boiler room” to the “board room.” We’ll learn strategies for shifting the building efficiency conversation upward, including how to successfully engage venture capitalists, building owners, and building operators. You’ll get different perspectives, hearing from a utility, a corporate energy manager, and a consultant. We’ll focus on what’s working and how to operationalize this approach within a utility account management team.

Chad Garrett, Product Manager, E Source Business Market Services
Mike Hildebrand, Senior Director, E Source Strategic Customer Relations
John Haney, Director, Customer Service Field Operations, Florida Power and Light
John Klein, Founder and CEO, JDM Associates
Doug Rath, Corporate Energy Manager, Marriott

How many of your customers understand the difference between energy efficiency (EE) and demand response (DR)? They’d probably all fit in a Volkswagen bug, with room left over for a beer cooler, right? How are you supposed to offer everyone else a seamlessly integrated package of EE and DR programs? Maybe the smart grid can help. Join us to find out how some utilities are using smart grid technology to integrate their EE and DR offerings.

Adam Maxwell, Product Manager, E Source Efficiency Services
Matt Evans, Manager, Special Projects & Integration, Southern California Edison Company
Rob Pratt, Manager, Smart Grid R&D Program, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Ever wonder how your peers decide which new technologies are ready to be incorporated into DSM program portfolios and which need more time to develop? In this interactive session entrepreneurs will present their latest energy-efficient innovations to a panel of DSM techies and program managers. The panelists, in an American Idol–like format, will then critique the presenters on their readiness for full-scale DSM program implementation. Will a new star technology be discovered? Come find out!

Spencer Sator, Product Manager, E Source Efficiency Services
Bill LeBlanc, Senior Advisor, E Source Member Services
Bruce Baccei, Emerging Technologies Project Manager, Sacramento Municipal Utility District
Ryan Fedie, Supervisory Mechanical Engineer, Bonneville Power Administration
David Helliwell, Co-Founder and CEO, PulseEnergy
Roy Johnson, CEO, EcoFactor
Danny Miller, President and Managing Principal, Transformative Wave Technologies
Timothy Melloch, Director, Energy-Efficiency Services, Commonwealth Edison
Jay Stein, Executive Vice President, E Source

Do you see the world through utility-tinted lenses or through the eyes of your customers? Not taking your customers’ experiences into consideration can be costly for both deregulated and regulated utilities. Come hear how Georgia Power used customer research to successfully promote its Flat Bill program. E Source will also share tricks for better understanding your customer’s utility interaction experiences. You’ll leave this collaborative session with a method for applying customer experience principles to your own utility’s offerings and customer interactions.

Florence Connally, Associate Research Director, E Source
Bob Hughes, Product Manager, Georgia Power

Managers of utility lighting programs are scrambling to keep up with increasing DSM goals, new technologies, and federal policies that affect lighting. Three industry leaders will share their experiences with developing innovative program concepts for residential and commercial lighting programs. Representatives from PG&E and BPA will discuss their comprehensive lighting efforts, as well as midstream and upstream approaches for C&I customers. A D&R International program manager will explain why utilities should consider adopting a new “market lift” program model for residential lighting, and provide details on upcoming pilots with retailers in Oregon, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

Rachel Reiss Buckley, Research Director, E Source
Chris Cloutier, Senior Program Manager, D&R International
Carolyn Weiner, Senior Product Manager, Pacific Gas and Electric
John Wilson, C&I Lighting Program Manager, Bonneville Power Administration

Distributed-generation (DG) installations continue to proliferate, driven by plunging prices for rooftop photovoltaics, historically low natural gas prices, and the emergence and allure of the Bloom fuel cell. For utilities, this perfect storm is eroding revenue, while operating costs have barely budged, and regulators and the general public are resisting changes to traditional pricing structures. Discover how some companies are turning this possible threat into an opportunity.

Mary Horsey, Research Manager, E Source
Milton Holloway, President and COO, Center for the Commercialization of Electric Technologies
Scott Jarman, Acting Director of Energy Efficiency Services, Austin Energy
Tim Roughan, Director, Distributed Resources, National Grid

There’s been tremendous growth in the scope and sophistication of utility energy behavior-change programs. In this peer discussion, we’ll discuss a variety of programs, share the lessons we’ve learned, and look to industry leaders for inspiration and guidance in our future behavior-change efforts. This is a vendor-free session, open to invited utility attendees interested in behavior change.

Matthew Burks, Senior Product Manager, E Source Customer Experience Services
Bill LeBlanc, Senior Advisor, E Source

Join us for a fun-filled western-themed night! Visit exhibitors to be entered into a drawing for exhibitor-sponsored prizes. Get your picture taken at the photo booth, drop by the saloon for a game of poker, or mosey on up to the dessert bar sponsored by energyOrbit! We’ll also have coverage of the presidential debate in the Conference Foyer area.

Calling all Sharks and Kingpins! Whether you want to bowl a few frames, showcase your best pool shot, or participate in individual or team competitions for prizes, it’s sure to be a fun night! Refreshments and prizes sponsored by Nexant.

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With more American adults now owning a smartphone versus a traditional cell phone and 44 percent of adults accessing the Internet from their phone, the mobile channel clearly cannot be ignored. Find out what utilities are doing to serve customers via mobile websites and apps. You’ll learn what the key considerations are when designing and implementing a mobile strategy in a multichannel environment.

Stephanie Spalding, Research Manager, E Source
Eric Davis, User Experience Supervisor, American Electric Power
Adrienne Anderson, Senior eChannel Program Manager, Commonwealth Edison
Tegan Snyder, Web Architect, Nebraska Public Power District

This hands-on workshop will focus on demand-side management (DSM) best practices and benchmarking to help you create more effective programs back at your utility. Through interactive discussions and small working groups, we’ll explore residential and commercial program elements that are yielding the most success, metrics that help assess these programs in real time, evaluation approaches that promote improvement and creativity, and effective marketing elements.

Bill LeBlanc, Senior Advisor, E Source
Adam Maxwell, Product Manager, E Source

Let’s make sure we’ve got this straight: When we run demand-response and pricing programs, we tell our customers to turn off perfectly good loads. How are we supposed to sell that idea without completely confusing everyone? Come hear from utilities that actually succeeded in marketing direct load control and dynamic pricing programs to their customers.

Dulcey Simpkins, Research Manager, E Source
Michelle Costello, Program Manager, San Diego Gas & Electric
Sara Hill, Customer Programs Marketing & Outreach Manager, San Diego Gas & Electric
Ruth Kiselewich, Director, DSM Programs, Baltimore Gas & Electric

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and lighting controls are two topics dominating lighting discussions today, and we’ll explore the potential and pitfalls of both. We’ll look at the latest developments in LED technology that are promising ever-increasing levels of efficiency while giving some pundits pause about the overall impact these LEDs could have on grid stability. We’ll also examine how a new generation of controls can ensure that the lights are only on when they’re needed, at the levels required—that is, if the system is correctly installed.

Ira Krepchin, Research Director, E Source
Dave Bisbee, Project Manager, Sacramento Municipal Utility District
Nancy Clanton, President, Clanton & Associates Inc.
Stan Walerczyk, Principal, Lighting Wizards

A customer's experience is all about emotion . . . and those feelings directly impact perceptions of a company's brand. We’ll discuss the demographic and programmatic factors that influence utility brands and outline practical steps your company can take to improve its connections with customers. A leading corporate communications strategist (and author of the book “The Language of Trust: Selling Ideas in a World of Skeptics”) will talk about how utilities can effectively sell ideas and build rapport with a skeptical public. Whether you’re responding to a crisis, framing a contentious issue, or attempting to rebuild your brand, you’ll discover innovative approaches for improving critical connections with your customers.

Matthew Burks, Senior Product Manager, E Source Customer Experience Services
Rachel Cooper, Senior Research Associate, E Source
Michael Maslansky, CEO, Maslansky Luntz & Partners

Everyone’s talking about behavioral programs, but not everyone agrees on what they are, whether they work, what they’re good for, and whether the savings are reliable. What kinds of programs are effective for whom and why? Come hear experts hash out these issues and more in the great behavioral debate.

Dulcey Simpkins, Research Manager, E Source
Sandra Baule, Customer Engagement Manager, San Diego Gas & Electric
Rebecca Craft, Director, Energy-Efficiency Programs, Con Edison
Patricia Thompson, Principal, Sageview Associates
Becky Williamson, Strategic Marketing Coordinator, Memphis Light, Gas & Water

Connecting with rural, senior, or culturally diverse customers is critical if your utility programs and services are to succeed. Yet, it can be difficult to engage these hard-to-reach customers through traditional methods. Successful engagement requires different outreach strategies, partnerships, and media streams. Come learn how utilities are successfully reaching these customers by using creative methods, messages, and events.

Katie Ruiz, Research Associate, E Source
Aida Velazquez, Energy Programs Supervisor Customer Assistance Outreach, San Diego Gas & Electric
Brian Sloboda, Senior Program Manager, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association

Which avenue of investment will get your company the most mileage for its electric vehicle (EV) program? Is it public charging stations that are rarely used? Or how about putting your dollars into marketing and communication campaigns that inform your customers about their EV options? You’ll hear from program managers who are actively pursuing creative approaches for dispelling media hype and eliminating customer confusion. They'll be sharing the techniques they’ve tried as well as the results of their efforts.

Jay Stein, Executive Vice President, E Source
Bryan Jungers, Research Manager, E Source
Russell Shaver, Consulting Engineer, Austin Energy
Dominique Villela, CEO/Owner, Injected Media and Research Engineer, AzRISE
Jason Wozny, Account Manager, Action Marketing

Join us for lunch as we honor the top utilities from our 2012 brand strength survey and benchmark studies for business websites and large and midsize business customer satisfaction. We will also be revealing the winners for the 2012 E Source Utility Ad Awards, presenting awards for best TV, radio, outdoor, digital, and print ads, as well as best overall campaign.

Customers come in all shapes and sizes, and so do their payment preferences. Learn about exciting payment options that leading utilities are providing to their customers, giving them opportunities to pay the way they’d like to pay. The options you’ll learn about include text-to-pay, mobile applications, no-fee credit cards, and prepay.

Sarah Fiebiger, Senior Research Associate, E Source
Jonna Buck, IT Services Supervisor, Oklahoma Electric Cooperative
Tarah DeGeorge, Customer Experience Specialist, Portland General Electric
Laurie Parker, Communications Coordinator, Nashville Electric Service

Automated demand response (AutoDR) was first introduced in 2003 by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. There have been a handful of pilots over the past 10 years and more recently interest is really starting to heat up. Is this load-control strategy ready for full-scale adoption by utilities? Or is it experiencing some growing-pains? To help answer these questions we’ll have one of the leading pioneers of the concept shed light on the history and latest developments in the field. We’ll also hear from utilities that are implementing this strategy and how they think it will enhance their ability to manage load and strengthen their customer offerings.

Ti Mougne, Research Manager, E Source
Harlan Coomes, Customer Programs & Services, Sacramento Municipal Utility District
Mary Ann Piette, Research Director, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Is your utility being required to meet rapidly increasing demand-side management goals? Have you tried targeting the customers most likely to participate in efficiency programs in order to reach those goals? Find out how three utilities succeeded with segmentation strategies based on propensity scores, customer-centric perspectives, and more.

Rachel Cooper, Senior Research Associate, E Source
Ruth Covich, Director, Corporate Marketing, Ontario Power Authority
Felecia Lokey Etheridge, Senior Director, Customer Engagement, Pacific Gas and Electric
Ellen Tarantur, Marketing Analyst, Progress Energy
Sarah Thornton, Senior Market Research Specialist, Progress Energy, Inc.

Plug loads are big energy hogs, representing as much as 15 percent of the electricity consumed in homes and 20 percent consumed in commercial offices. But their energy usage is projected to keep growing well into the future. We’ll look at the worst offenders, discuss current market trends, and identify new opportunities that can help you develop innovative and effective plug load programs for your residential and commercial customers.

Essie Snell, Senior Research Associate, E Source
Paul Campbell, Director-Environmental Sustainability/Green Leadership, Sears Holdings Corporation
Tim Michel, Supervisor of Channel Engagement, Pacific Gas and Electric
Mike Walker, President, Beacon Consultants

Join your peers to discuss the latest developments in utility distributed energy programs. This will be a roundtable setting where participants can share their stories and insights. Subjects for discussion will include technologies (ranging from photovoltaics to microturbines, fuel cells, combined heat and power, and storage), program designs, and business models.

This is a vendor-free session, only open to utility attendees interested in distributed energy.

Michael Shepard, CEO, E Source

This working group will detail segmentation successes and lessons learned. We’ll uncover innovative approaches being used at other utilities and look at how effective those efforts have been. We’ll also highlight targeted marketing efforts for a mix of products and services and explore the effectiveness of segmentation with the goal of improving customer satisfaction. Come armed with your questions and the group will use their combined experience to help identify solutions. Join this frank conversation and make contacts with other industry leaders in your field.

This is a vendor-free session, open to utility employees interested in business and residential customer segmentation.

Chad Garrett, Product Manager, E Source Business Market Services
Mike Hildebrand, Senior Director, E Source Strategic Customer Relations

Join your peers to discuss the latest developments in utility electric vehicle (EV) programs. We'll be holding this discussion in a roundtable setting where participants can share their stories and insights. Among the topics we’ll explore are communication and outreach efforts, customer education, program management, and special EV rates.

This is a vendor-free session, only open to utility attendees interested in electric vehicles.

Jay Stein, Executive Vice President, E Source
Bryan Jungers, Research Manager, E Source

Join us for a two-hour guided walking tour in Denver's historic LoDo area. Learn more about the history of beer, how it’s made, what the different types are, and why Denver has been called the “Napa Valley of Beer.” We’ll visit several microbreweries, taste beer at each one, and get a behind-the-scenes tour of one of the breweries. ($30 per person)

Take a self-guided tour of the Downtown Aquarium, which houses over 500 species of aquatic and land-based wildlife from ecosystems around the world. Transportation included. ($30 per person)

Enjoy a group ride along some of Denver’s scenic bike paths, easily accessible from downtown. ($30 per person)

Get some exercise and explore some of the many trails and paths that downtown Denver has to offer.

Join us as we take a culinary walking tour of Denver’s lower downtown district, tasting our way through several restaurants while getting to know one another better. ($50 per person)

Join us at Denver’s oldest brewery for a round of pool, shuffle board, or darts. Refreshments sponsored by Opower.

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As utilities increase self-service options across channels, it’s creating a shift in the call center, resulting in more-complex, longer-lasting calls. Find out how to change your call center paradigm and which metrics can most effectively measure performance. In particular, we’ll discuss the Net Promoter® ® score. It’s an essential reference point for utilities striving to increase their brand strength and develop trust and loyalty among their customers. The benefits include expanding the ability to cross-serve customers with programs and products, while helping the utility when natural disasters and other big events create service challenges. (Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score, and NPS are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems Inc., Bain & Company Inc., and Fred Reichheld.)

Rich Goodwin, Manager, Customer Experience Services, E Source
Barbara Burke, Principal, Barbara Burke & Associates, Inc.
Rajeev Shrivastava, Vice President, Strategic Business Development, Satmetrix Systems

Programmable thermostats were designed to help us save energy, but those savings never fully materialized. Many utilities stopped incentivizing them and Energy Star discontinued its thermostat program. However, over the past few years a flood of new devices chock full of enhanced smarts and communications capabilities has swept into the marketplace. You’ll learn about the latest developments, what Energy Star is doing to re-engage with thermostats, and find out how one utility is reaping the benefits.

Peter Criscione, Research Manager, E Source
Abigail Daken, HVAC & Water Heating Specs, Energy Star Program–Climate Controls, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Lee Hamilton, Research Associate, E Source
Scott Jarman, Consulting Engineer, Austin Energy

Find out why prepaid metering programs using advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is a winning idea for customers, utilities, and regulators. Learn how to get your customers hooked on the many benefits prepay offers during this interactive session. A panel of utilities will share their successes and lessons learned with marketing prepay to customers, and you’ll participate in a closing activity that will help pull together what you’ve learned.

Sarah Fiebiger, Senior Research Associate, E Source
Dexter Borbe, Director, New Ventures, Direct Energy
Jonna Buck, IT Services Supervisor, Oklahoma Electric Cooperative
Kelley Coats, Customer Programs Department Leader, APS

Join us to learn how to spice up your commercial and industrial (C&I) programs, whether established or just emerging. Energy-efficiency programs traditionally focus on equipment replacements, but C&I programs are evolving into new designs. Utilities are developing deeper and longer-term relationships with customers to generate and maintain energy reductions. You’ll find out how to make the best use of a limited budget, shift your customers’ mindset about energy management, and breathe new life into mature programs.

Melanie Wemple, Senior Research Associate, E Source
John Lux, Director of Product and Business Development, Agentis Energy
Adam Perry, Senior Energy Services Specialist, Platte River Power Authority
Beth Pollock, Director of Commercial and Industrial Sectors, Efficiency New Brunswick

The utility mission, as well as the utility business model, is in serious need of a makeover. If the old mission was to provide inexpensive, reliable power everywhere, the new one is to improve our customers’ lives, strengthen the communities we serve, and protect the environment through high-value integrated energy services delivered on both sides of the meter. It's about forging deep and profitable partnerships between utilities and customers across all services and contact channels.

Michael Shepard, CEO, E Source
Maureen Russolo, Director, E Source Customer Experience Services

The Palm Restaurant, at The Westin Denver Downtown

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