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April (2022) Member Spotlight: Jennifer Foster (Evergy)
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April (2022) Member Spotlight: Jennifer Foster (Evergy)
Jennifer Foster 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. As thanks, we are featuring her in the UAI Member Spotlight. Jennifer Foster is the Senior Manager of Transmission and Distribution Asset Management for Evergy. In this role, she leads of team of eight engineers who develop capital projects and programs focused on reducing system risk and improving reliability for customers.
Kevin: How did you get into the utility analytics industry?
Jennifer: Utility analytics just sort of grew up around me. Over my 26 years at Evergy and its predecessor companies, I have worked in many departments that focused on improving performance through analyzing data. The addition of new computer technologies and data science tools has made utility analytics a key input in our asset management strategy.
Kevin: What project have you enjoyed working on most in your career?
Jennifer: That would be developing our asset health algorithm for substation transformers. It was our first attempt to take asset and condition information to develop a health score that could be used to prioritize capital replacements. We continue to enhance and add to the algorithm, so it is like watching your kids grow and become more capable.
Kevin: What has been your biggest professional challenge and how did you work through it?
Jennifer: Making the switch from an engineer to a manager. I’ve spent most of my career working on projects, down in the details, so doing the work appeals to me. I remind myself that I have a talented group of employees to handle those tasks now and I need to focus on growing their skills, cultivating trust, and thinking strategically about what’s next.
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?
Jennifer: Data – you can never have too much.
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?
Jennifer: I would be interested in learning if other members have done any work with AI or ML to take equipment name plate images for select equipment types and translate them into records in an asset database.
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?
Jennifer: I would like to thank the members of UAI for being such an open community that shares your knowledge and experiences with others to keep advancing utility analytics. I can always take something away from each of the community conversations I attend.
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Kevin Praet
Membership Coordinator
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
Boulder CO
315-440-3033
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1 Reply
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Hi Maria,
A managed platform can be interpretated in a variety of ways. It would help to understand the specifics of what you are looking for, what you currently have and where you’d like to be in the future.
We recently moved to Microsoft Azure as our strategic data platform. It is ‘managed’ from infrastructure stand point, but we (RPU and partners) are responsible for the build and development of the solutions, from storage, ELT/ETL, and BI presentation stand point. The big three, AWS, Google, and Microsoft all offer end to end analytics platform.
Would love to chat and share what we’ve learned along the way. Just let me know if you are interested.
Cheers,
Phil
Phil Teng
Manager of Information Services
Rochester Public Utilities
4000 East River Rd NE, Rochester, MN 55906
Office: 507-280-1530 | Cell: 507-993-9514
P RPU is an environmentally responsible company. Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
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Original Message:
Sent: 3/31/2022 8:47:00 AM
From: Maria Machado
Subject: Single Platform Solution for AnalyticsEXTERNAL EMAIL: Do not click any links or open any attachments unless you trust the sender and know the content is safe. Hi Members:
My name is Maria Machado and I work with customer data analytics at Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC).
We are trying to find a single platform solution for all current and future Analytics and BI needs for OUC. We are looking for a managed platform with AWS marketplace presence that integrates with all major cloud vendors (Google, AWS, Azure, IBM), that can fulfill the Data Analytics needs and the BI requirements. We have found only a handful of players who can offer this type of solution, like MicroStrategy.
We would like to know if any of you have found a solution like this one or are in the process of finding one. If you have, we would love to hear any recommendation that you can offer.
Thanks!
Maria Machado, MBA
Sr Business Analytics Specialist
Phone 407/434-2328
The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it. Albert Einstein
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