UAI News
Welcome to the UAI News Community! UAI will now be posting all of our member communications to this... View more
Organizers:
- Organized by
-
-
January (2022) Member Spotlight: Mario Correa (SoCal Gas)
-
January (2022) Member Spotlight: Mario Correa (SoCal Gas)
Mario Correa is an active UAI member and provides outstanding influence and contributions to the UAI community through any of our multiple channels, including, but not limited to engagement on UAI Connect, volunteering with UAI, involvement and/or leadership in monthly Community Conversations, and/or speaking at UAI events, plus so much. Mario was even selected as one of this year’s Top 25 Thought Leaders in Utility Analytics! As thanks, we are featuring him in the January 2022 UAI Member Spotlight.
Kevin: How did you get into the utility analytics industry?
Member: I was at a Christmas party. The supervisor in charge of AMI analytics was telling me about her challenges in building a team that needed to monitor the natural gas consumption of six million meters every day. I was an IT lead at a defense contractor at the time, but I had been an algorithms team lead prior so I thought it was a good opportunity to leverage my experience in something entirely new.
Kevin: What project have you enjoyed working on most in your career?
Member: The answer to the next question has that answer, but I think the best is yet to come. These are exciting times at SoCalGas. There is a huge push to get applications and processes to the Cloud and that requires transformational change across the board. Similar to what I did for the AMI consumption analytics team, I’m helping other teams in SCG restructure in preparation for being more data driven than in the past. I am looking forward to the time, just on the horizon, where we have an ecosystem of analytic systems and teams tackling challenging business problems.
Kevin: What has been your biggest professional challenge and how did you work through it?
Member: I was the principal engineer in charge of putting together the technical solution for my company’s bid to upgrade a nationwide system. I was able to put together a dedicated, strong core team whose members were able to bring in the talent we needed to make a go at it. That came in handy during crunch time. I remember being in the lab late at night on the weekend over Christmas break, not the same Christmas mentioned above, eating pizza with some of the team as we were trying to reverse engineer some firmware logic that was giving us some heartache. We couldn’t reach our hardware vendor partner and not everything was in the documentation. Fortunately, we were able to make headway before the holiday ended and I’m happy to say that we ended up winning the bid. That was a fun time and not just because we were eating pizza in the computer lab; the lab manager would have had a conniption.
Kevin: If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice before entering the utility analytics industry, what would it be?
Member: I was lucky because after I graduated one of my aunts told me the following, “who you know can be more important than what you know”. Just coming out of a mathematics program that didn’t make sense initially, but it eventually sank in. The spectrum of analytics tasks, from building models and data pipelines to effectively communicating the results, requires a team and productionizing analytic process may take several teams. It is the network of the “right” people that swiftly moves everything along.
Kevin: What would you like to talk to fellow colleagues and members about in UAI Connect? Or, what issues or topics would you like to see more discussions on in UAI Connect?
Member: I would like to start hearing discussions on what I call higher level analytics. For example, models and processes that use input from a number of other models or “smart processes” for bigger picture situational analysis and awareness.
Kevin: Thank you so much for sharing with us and for being a highly engaged member of UAI!
Do you have any final thoughts, ideas, or comments you would like to share with your fellow UAI members?
Member: Great job UAI members! Four years ago at the UAI conference I attended, many of the presentations were about getting started in analytics. I’ve seen several presentations in the past year that deep dive into a variety of uses cases and lessons learned. That reflects the rapid growth of capabilities within our industry. I have been able to leverage some of the ideas presented and taken note of others. Thank you.
——————————
Kevin Praet
Membership Coordinator
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
Boulder CO
315-440-3033
—————————— -
2 Replies
-
Bravo!
——————————
Norv Clontz
Director, Data Science Innovation
Duke Energy
Charlotte NC
9803732380
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 01-04-2022 14:11
From: Sandi Joralemon
Subject: Join us in congratulating Abbie Caracostas on her promotion!Congratulations Abbie! Well deserved!
——————————
Sandi Joralemon
Data Strategist
New Braunfels Utilities
New Braunfels TX
830.608.8941
——————————Original Message:
Sent: 01-04-2022 11:48
From: Patrick Dever
Subject: Join us in congratulating Abbie Caracostas on her promotion!Congratulations Abbie! It’s going to be a great 2022.
PATRICK D. DEVER
Avista Corp. – NYSE: AVA
Chief Data StrategistPhone: 509-495-8524; Fax: 509-777-6062
Email: pat.dever@avistacorp.com
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The contents of this email message and any attachments are intended solely for the addressee(s) and may contain confidential and/or privileged information and may be legally protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient of this message or an agent of the intended recipient, or if this message has been addressed to you in error, please immediately alert the sender by reply email and then delete this message and any attachments.
Original Message:
Sent: 1/4/2022 10:58:00 AM
From: Ashley Lutz
Subject: Join us in congratulating Abbie Caracostas on her promotion!
——————————
Ashley Lutz
Marketing Director
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI) & T&D World
—————————— -
Thanks for allowing UAI to feature you as our January 2022 Member Spotlight, @Mario and thank you for everything you do for the UAI Community! I loved reading your interview and learning more about your professional journey.
Cheers!
Leslie
——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 01-04-2022 14:32
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: January (2022) Member Spotlight: Mario Correa (SoCal Gas)Mario Correa is an active UAI member and provides outstanding influence and contributions to the UAI community through any of our multiple channels, including, but not limited to engagement on UAI Connect, volunteering with UAI, involvement and/or leadership in monthly Community Conversations, and/or speaking at UAI events, plus so much. Mario was even selected as one of this year’s Top 25 Thought Leaders in Utility Analytics! As thanks, we are featuring him in the January 2022 UAI Member Spotlight.
Kevin: How did you get into the utility analytics industry?
Member: I was at a Christmas party. The supervisor in charge of AMI analytics was telling me about her challenges in building a team that needed to monitor the natural gas consumption of six million meters every day. I was an IT lead at a defense contractor at the time, but I had been an algorithms team lead prior so I thought it was a good opportunity to leverage my experience in something entirely new.
Kevin: What project have you enjoyed working on most in your career?
Member: The answer to the next question has that answer, but I think the best is yet to come. These are exciting times at SoCalGas. There is a huge push to get applications and processes to the Cloud and that requires transformational change across the board. Similar to what I did for the AMI consumption analytics team, I’m helping other teams in SCG restructure in preparation for being more data driven than in the past. I am looking forward to the time, just on the horizon, where we have an ecosystem of analytic systems and teams tackling challenging business problems.
Kevin: What has been your biggest professional challenge and how did you work through it?
Member: I was the principal engineer in charge of putting together the technical solution for my company’s bid to upgrade a nationwide system. I was able to put together a dedicated, strong core team whose members were able to bring in the talent we needed to make a go at it. That came in handy during crunch time. I remember being in the lab late at night on the weekend over Christmas break, not the same Christmas mentioned above, eating pizza with some of the team as we were trying to reverse engineer some firmware logic that was giving us some heartache. We couldn’t reach our hardware vendor partner and not everything was in the documentation. Fortunately, we were able to make headway before the holiday ended and I’m happy to say that we ended up winning the bid. That was a fun time and not just because we were eating pizza in the computer lab; the lab manager would have had a conniption.
Kevin: If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice before entering the utility analytics industry, what would it be?
Member: I was lucky because after I graduated one of my aunts told me the following, “who you know can be more important than what you know”. Just coming out of a mathematics program that didn’t make sense initially, but it eventually sank in. The spectrum of analytics tasks, from building models and data pipelines to effectively communicating the results, requires a team and productionizing analytic process may take several teams. It is the network of the “right” people that swiftly moves everything along.
Kevin: What would you like to talk to fellow colleagues and members about in UAI Connect? Or, what issues or topics would you like to see more discussions on in UAI Connect?
Member: I would like to start hearing discussions on what I call higher level analytics. For example, models and processes that use input from a number of other models or “smart processes” for bigger picture situational analysis and awareness.
Kevin: Thank you so much for sharing with us and for being a highly engaged member of UAI!
Do you have any final thoughts, ideas, or comments you would like to share with your fellow UAI members?
Member: Great job UAI members! Four years ago at the UAI conference I attended, many of the presentations were about getting started in analytics. I’ve seen several presentations in the past year that deep dive into a variety of uses cases and lessons learned. That reflects the rapid growth of capabilities within our industry. I have been able to leverage some of the ideas presented and taken note of others. Thank you.
——————————
Kevin Praet
Membership Coordinator
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
Boulder CO
315-440-3033
——————————
Everyone’s favorite event director has gotten a much deserved promotion! Abbie is now the Event Director for all Endeavor Energy brands, including UAI and T&D World. She will continue to run UA Week and UA Summit along with our newest event,
Log in to reply.