Dear Fellow PES Members,

I am truly honored to be serving as the new Vice President – Meetings for the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES).  First, I would like to thank and recognize my predecessor, Tommy Mayne, who served in this position for the past 5 years. Having “big shoes to fill” is an understatement. Under Tommy’s passionate leadership, IEEE PES T&D 2016 received the FIRST IEEE MCE iCON Award. This honor celebrates an event that has demonstrated excellence in innovation, content curation, community building, and financial stability and growth. 2016 T&D was also the FIRST IEEE Conference ever to exceed $6 million in surplus. Because of the surpluses that PES conferences generated, PES was capable of funding the beginning of the PES Scholarship PLUS Program as well as the Smart Village Program. The bi-annual T&D Conference and Expo continues to be the flagship event for IEEE PES. Plans are already in full swing for the next T&D which will be hosted by ComEd and held on April 20-23, 2020 in Chicago. Be sure to mark your calendars to attend!

Most recently under Tommy’s leadership, we have established a new conference called GTD which is being held in Bangkok on March 19-23, 2019. We have also reestablished the ESMO Conference partnering with American Electric Power (AEP) in Columbus, Ohio. ESMO is a fine example of how we are bringing a good balance of industry and academia to our conferences and meetings. If you are an engineer, technician, lineman, etc. working in the field then ESMO is the perfect event for you!

Some in the electric power industry have said that more changes have taken place in the past 5 years than the last 100 years. The changes and buzzwords include: Distributed Energy Resources (DER’s), wind and solar, microgrids, energy storage, electric vehicles, cybersecurity, the changes in generation, reduction in coal, emergence of smart cities, etc. Some would say these are emerging technologies, and others would call them disruptive technologies.  One thing we can all agree on is that this is an exciting and interesting time to be in the electric power industry. What’s more, PES Meetings and Conferences are involved in all of these industry changes and technologies.

Attending PES Meetings, is the best way to keep up to date and educated on what is happening in our industry, how our grid is changing, and what the future of our industry will look like. What better way to experience this change, than to be part of it through PES!

Most important, through the PES Scholarship Plus Program we are preparing the next generation of workers to be educated in these new technologies and challenges facing our industry.

Finally, we are all volunteers, and this is what drives PES. I urge you to get involved in your Chapters and/or attend one of our approximately 50 PES Conferences and Meetings that are held worldwide. PES Conferences are great forums for learning the latest technologies, trends, networking with peers, and keeping a pulse on this exciting and changing industry that we all are a part of.

I look forward to seeing you at an IEEE PES Meeting or Conference this year and serving as your Vice President – Meetings.

Kind Regards,

Wayne Bishop Jr.
IEEE PES Vice President, Meetings

The article was published in: IEEE Power and Energy Magazine, Volume: 17, Issue: 2, March-April 2019 in Leader’s Corner: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8648257