On Sept. 13, Hurricane Ike tore through the Gulf Coast, wreaking havoc on lives and property. Transmission & Distribution World’s Editor Rick Bush and Contributor Gene Wolf headed to the region to provide a first-hand account of the damage including an insider view of utility emergency response efforts. Their reports and subsequent feature coverage highlighted how utilities, contractors, and suppliers work as a team to restore power as quickly as possible. Finepoint Conference's 2009 Factory Day hosted by HVB AE Systems in Suwanee, Georgia, will feature a presentation from Gene Wolf on the aftermath of Hurricane Ike and the utility response. It's actually a story of more than one hurricane. It is a series of hurricanes and how they affected our transmission and distribution grids. Sept. 1 saw Hurricane Gustav hit the Louisiana coast, less than a week later Hurricane Hanna hit the Carolinas, and not quite a week later Ike plowed into Galveston, Texas. When it was done, the path of destruction went from the Texas Gulf coast to Canada leaving over 7.5 million customers in the dark. Ike was the third most destructive hurricane ever to make landfall in the U.S. It is estimated to have caused roughly $24 billion worth of damage. Gene Wolf will share his first-hand experiences in south Texas working with CenterPoint Energy and the thousands of linemen, tree trimmers, technicians, and other stakeholders fighting to restore electrical power to CenterPoint’s 2.3 million customers. Wolf received his BSEE from Wichita State University and his MSEE from New Mexico State University. He is a registered engineer in the states of California and New Mexico. He started his utility career with Kansas Gas and Electric, retired as the Principal Engineer of Stations for Public Service Company of New Mexico, and founded Lone Wolf Engineering, LLC, an engineering consulting company. He was awarded Fellow of the IEEE in 2008 for his work in substation standardization. Gene is widely recognized as a technical leader in the electric power industry and has authored many IEEE PES technical papers. He is the past Chairman of the IEEE PES T&D Committee.

In addition, Gene has been teaching and writing about the Intelligent Grid for many years. In 2007 he won the prestigious American Society of Business Publication Editor’s Gold Award for Special Supplements for his “Digital Utility” supplement appearing in Transmission & Distribution World’s December 2006 issue. Gene is a technical writer for Transmission & Distribution World magazine and has been responsible for all of supplements on the Intelligent Grid appearing in the magazine.

Be sure to visit HVB AE Systems each evening at The Hospitality Expo in Booth # 70.