Speaker Biographies
Eric Howell - SERC Eric Howell is the SERC Program Manager, Critical Infrastructure Protection, responsible for the SERC CIPC including the Physical Security Subcommittee and the CIP Tools Working Group. Eric came to SERC from Georgia Systems Operation (GASOC) where he was responsible for designing and supporting the CIP infrastructure and compliance that encompassed the Energy Management Systems (EMS) monitoring and controlling the grid resources for Georgia Transmission, Oglethorpe Power and their member coops. He has also designed and implemented interfacing and communications for GE turbines around the world allowing them to communicate with the Monitoring and Diagnostic Center in Atlanta, GA. Over his career he has had the opportunity to work in many industries including teaching the hardware, software and physics of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. He designing and implementing network and computer infrastructures for financial processing companies, heavy equipment manufacturing companies, communications companies, and international governments. Throughout his career Eric has had the opportunity to work with and interact with people and cultures around the world as he brought technology to organizations and taught the skills to maintain this technology. During his time in the control center. Chris spent several years as an Energy Management Systems (EMS) Engineer and later joined the newly formed NERC Compliance and Training group as a System Operator training engineer. During that time Chris became NERC certified as a Reliability Coordinator (RC) as he built and delivered training programs for operations personnel. Chris was instrumental in starting and building his company’s CIP compliance program and became the manager of CIP Compliance in its new NERC Compliance and Operations Technology group. Chris was also the manager of his company’s NERC Training Department through the PER-005 compliance implementation effort, as well as the manager of both the EMS and Applications teams and the CIP Compliance group. Chris Holmquest - SERC Chris Holmquest joined SERC in July 2019 as a Senior Reliability and Security Advisor. Prior to joining SERC, Chris was with the Florida Reliability Coordinating Council (FRCC) Regional Entity. He joined FRCC RE as a CIP Compliance Auditor in 2013, and was promoted to Manager, Risk Assessment and Mitigation in 2014, as part of the new NERC initiative for Risk-Based Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement. Chris was the FRCC RE representative on the CIP V5 Transition Study, where he worked with the SERC representative and the two SERC utilities selected for the study. Chris has 37 years of electric utility experience, serving over 30 years with a medium-sized electric utility before joining FRCC RE. Chris spent eight years in fossil generation and 23 years at the transmission and generation control center.
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