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Thank you for a successful Grid ComForum East!

Thank you to all of the speakers, sponsors, and industry leaders from throughout the Eastern region that gathered in Atlanta this week for Grid ComForum East.

The conference was a huge success and we look forward to seeing you all at future Grid ComForum events!

View our on-line photo gallery!

Empowering Grid Communications

The International Engineering Consortium (IEC) is pleased to present its next Grid ComForum program, GCF East. The event will take place June 1-3, 2011 at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Hosted by Southern Company and Georgia Institute of Technology, GCF East will provide a unique conference for electric power utilities, vendors, and suppliers involved in Smart Grid technology deployment.

The partnership with Georgia Institute of Technology provides a necessary bridge to tier one research universities, an important resource in the driving the future of Smart Grid.

The meeting will be broken down into two parts. June 1, 2011 consists of a Southern Company programming day reserved for Southern Company employees and official program sponsors.

June 2-3, 2011 will be open to the industry as a whole and will deal with the critical business issues of deployment and management of this next-generation technology, and focus on the communications layer important to the information demands of the Smart Grid.

Conference Chairperson

Susan N. Story
President and CEO
Southern Company Services

Southern Company Core Planning Team

Becky Blalock, Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer, Southern Company
Mike Clanton, Vice President, Energy Sales & Efficiency, Georgia Power
Bryan Fletcher, Vice President, Supply Chain Management, Southern Company Services
Danny Glover, Vice President, Distribution, Alabama Power
Chris Hobson, Vice President, Research and Environmental Affairs, Southern Company Services
Don Horsley, Vice President, Customer Services Organization, Mississippi Power
Bernard Jacob, Vice President, Customer Operations, Gulf Power
Carrie Kurlander, Vice President, Corporate Communication, Southern Company Services
Rich Mandes, Vice President, Transmission, Alabama Power
Wes McDowell, Vice President, CIO, Georgia Region, Southern Company
Leslie Sibert, Vice President, Distribution, Georgia Power
Anthony Wilson, Vice President, Transmission, Georgia Power

Keynote Panelists

Thursday, June 2
8:15 am - 9:45 am

Keynote Panel: Visions for the 21st Century Grid

Moderator:
Chris Baltimore
Houston Bureau Chief
Reuters

Panelists:

	Thomas Fanning Chairman, President, and CEO Southern Company		G.P. "Bud" Peterson President Georgia Institute of Technology
	Kateri Callahan President Alliance to Save Energy		John Estey President & CEO S&C Electric Company

Thursday, June 2
10:00 am - 11:30 am

Keynote Panel: Policy and Regulation

	Moderator: James Kerr Partner, McGuire Woods LLP Former North Carolina Public Service Commissioner
Panelists:
	Tony Clark President NARUC	Mignon Clyburn FCC Commissioner
	Patricia Hoffman Assistant Secretary, Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability US Department of Energy	John Norris Commissioner FERC

Thursday, June 2
12:30 pm - 1:45 pm

Keynote Panel: Smart Grid Technology Roadmap

	Moderator: Arshad Mansoor SVP EPRI
Panelists:
	Becky Blalock Senior Vice President Chief Information Officer Southern Company	Bob Gilligan VP Digital Energy GE Energy Services
	Peter Mainz CEO & President Sensus	Mark Moskvitz Partner IBM Global Business Services
	Guerry Waters Vice President, Industry Strategy Oracle Utilities

Why Grid ComForum?

A unique GCF East experience

Hosted by Southern Company, a leader in the southeast region in Smart Grid planning and deployment
Oriented toward deployment of Smart Grid technologies, including business issues, technology management, operations, and workforce development
Targeted at the eastern region's needs, recognizing the variations in regulatory policy at the state level and its effect on Smart Grid deployments
Emphasizes grid communications, the essential activity of information collection and management to make the next-generation power grid a Smart Grid

A meeting for the Eastern region

GCF East attracts all the major players in the electric power industry including the following:

Southern Company, GCF East's host utility, and its regional counterparts that are reviewing the latest technologies and solutions while seeking relationships with suppliers in order to build a secure, next-generation power grid
Regulators and policy makers, who need to understand Smart Grid technology and its impact on the utilities they regulate as they seek to secure and advance the electric power infrastructure
Equipment makers and software technology vendors that provide the technology components to add the communications layer to the grid for performance monitoring and load response
Communication service providers and systems integrators, that manage the deployment of the two-way communication component through the use of their network services, thus enabling the next-generation power grid
The academic community including university faculty, research staff, and students seeking to gain a better understanding of the industry's current and future Smart Grid needs
Associations, Forums, Industry Groups, and their respective members who need to stay on top of the latest trends in Smart Grid deployment.