Experience
More than 25 years delivering large technology projects, including continuous work inside a major Canadian utility's grid operations since 2011. All of my engagements since 2003 have been through Kindred, which I founded and still run from Beautiful British Columbia. Client names are withheld; details are available on request.
Kindred Technologies Inc.
2003 to present
I founded Kindred in 2003, after five years at Discovery Software, and have worked through it ever since, often in titled roles inside client organizations, from vice-president to program and project manager. Clients have kept me for years at a time; my current engagement began in 2011.
Project Manager, Technology Operations
Engagement: major Canadian utility, through a consulting partner
2016 to present
- GE Vernova ADMS implementation. Implementation project manager for control-room ADMS and Volt-VAR Optimization, integrated with GE Smallworld GIS (CIM), GE EMS, SAP work order management and distribution planned-outage management. Leads network-model data readiness, testing, training and cutover; go-live planned for 2027.
- GE Vernova ADMS definition. Project manager for requirements, architecture, design, infrastructure, test strategy, change management, the implementation estimate, vendor management and a business case approved by the CIO. Internal team of 30 and seven vendors.
- GE EMS, FERC Order 881 ratings. Hourly ambient-adjusted and forecast transmission ratings, integrating SCADA/ICCP, ratings data sources and weather forecast feeds. Required for US market participation, with a fixed regulatory deadline.
- GE EMS v3.0 to v3.3 upgrade. New network and infrastructure at two locations, intrusion detection at remote sites, new servers and control-room consoles, and replacement of custom functions with standard ones to cut maintenance and upgrade costs. Regression tested across thousands of test cases; delivered on time and on budget within a fixed cutover window.
- GE PowerOn v4.3 upgrade. Upgraded two highly customized outage management instances onto new infrastructure in a new network zone, with integrations to SAP, GIS, field work, the public website and the call centre IVR. Cut over on schedule and on budget.
- Itron OpenWay, MDMS and Cisco FND upgrades. Coordinated end-to-end meter-to-cash upgrades across the AMI head-end, meter data management and field network, now serving 2.1 million meters.
Program Manager, Field Device Operations
Engagement: major Canadian utility, through a consulting partner
2013 to 2016
- Migrated the meter network from IPv4 to IPv6: 1.9 million meters, more than 7,000 range extenders and 2,000 routers, followed by multiple meter firmware upgrades.
- Upgraded the meter collection engine, reporting system, network management system, and meter register and communication firmware.
- Owned contract review, key metrics and the requirements traceability matrix across all vendor requirements, and agreed final KPIs for the meter and field network.
PMO Lead, Smart Metering Program
Engagement: major Canadian utility, within a global systems integrator's PMO
2011 to 2013
- Joined as a reporting analyst and moved into the lead role, co-managing a blended PMO team of seven.
- Accountable for program, corporate and executive reporting; issues, risks, assumptions and change control; and the program schedule for a $930M smart metering and infrastructure program.
Program Manager, then Vice President, Technical Operations
Engagement: Kiwi Collection
2009 to 2011
- As program manager, reporting to the senior vice president, ran delivery and operations for a luxury hotel program delivered as white-label websites for more than a dozen banks in 13 languages, including rate parity, reservation escalation and hotel contracts.
- As vice president, reporting to the president, responsible for internal IT, the data centre, development and quality assurance.
Vice President, Client Services
Engagement: Marqui
2006 to 2008
- Reporting to the CEO, responsible for professional services, customer support, internal IT and SaaS data-centre operations, with P&L accountability for services revenue, gross margin and billable utilization.
- Directed more than 100 content management and web marketing implementations, and overhauled the SaaS infrastructure to add failover and redundancy.
Product Manager; earlier Solutions Engineer
Engagement: Chancery Software, later Pearson School Systems
2003 to 2006
- Owned the roadmap for the product framework, architecture, school portal, teacher tools and grading in a leading student management system for large K-12 districts: market and competitive analysis, requirements prioritization and release communication.
- As solutions engineer, supported major district implementations, RFP responses, demonstrations and scoping of professional services projects, including winning bids for student information systems at two of the largest urban school districts in the US.
Before Kindred
Client Management Executive and Acting VP Sales
Discovery Software Ltd, K-12 education software
Earlier roles: Technical Operations Manager, Senior Account Manager, Implementation Specialist
1998 to 2003
- Managed design, development and delivery of a leading teacher gradebook, from competitive analysis and feature prioritization to requirements. It was used by thousands of teachers in more than 9,000 schools across North America.
- Managed enhancements to three K-12 student information systems (SASIxp, Osiris and TSS), including state and provincial reporting customizations for more than 14 jurisdictions.
- Grew the student information system accounts by more than US$1.2M in under a year, more than doubling active account size.
- Led large district rollouts of school administration technology: requirements, technology recommendations, implementation and training for thousands of teachers and hundreds of administrators in the US and Canada.
- As technical operations manager, ran configuration and requirements management, IT operations, architecture, documentation, training and internal development.
Education and certifications
- Master of Business Administration, University of Phoenix
- Bachelor of Arts, University of Nebraska
- Formerly Project Management Professional (PMP®) and Certified ScrumMaster®