#1. SEPTEMBER, 2004 MDU/REMC
Presidents Report: September of 2004
Fall 2004 Conference in Bismarck, North Dakota
Greetings All,
The Fall 2004 meeting was held August 26-29 in Bismarck, North Dakota and was hosted by Montana-Dakota Utilities and Rainbow Energy Marketing. The weather was more cooperative than the Spring meeting. It rained some Friday morning, but the weather for the Friday evening Pitchfork Fondue at Fort Lincoln State Park and Missouri Riverboat cruise was almost picture perfect. Touring the Custer house at the park was an interesting and unique experience. Saturday afternoon activities enjoyed a similar occurrence.
NERC CEH's were once again offered at this meeting. Topics included Relaying Concepts, Locational Marginal Pricing, and Lessons Learned from the 8/14 Outage. There were also presentations of Shift Work and Sleep, MUD/Westmoreland Gascoyne Project, Bismarck State College System Operators Program, and James Ford gave an update on the NERC CEH white paper.
On Saturday morning the APDA business meetings were held for the UMW area and the National. The area business covered the following items. Don Splinter reported that the WUM's area members would be meeting September 7th to vote whether or not to permanently join the UMW area. The scholarship program was discussed. Recommendations that DTEC raise the amount and number of scholarships were made. This is due to the success of the raffles in raising money for the fund. It was also recommended that the guidelines be reviewed.
Jeff Kilber (GRE) asked that the membership look at working with Bismarck State to promote and perhaps give scholarships for the System Operator Program offered there. Discussion followed and it was agreed that looking into this would be a good idea. I will be contacting BSU to see what ideas we can come up with to work together and report back at the next meeting.
The Spring 2005 conference will be held in Des Moines Iowa and hosted by Mid-American Energy. The Fall 2005 conference will be hosted by Midwest ISO St. Paul, in St. Paul Minnesota. We are looking for meeting hosts starting Spring 2006 and on.
The Saturday evening banquet and raffle were a great success. The food offered throughout the conference was plentiful and excellent. Everyone from MDU and Rainbow did a superb job of providing an interesting conference with a variety of activities to attend. A big thanks to you all for all your hard work.
Hope to see you in the Des Moines in the Spring.
Jane Cocker, UMW APDA, President
#2. JUNE, 2004 MHEB
New Presidents Report: June of 2004
Spring 2004 Conference in Winnipeg Manitoba Canada
Greetings All,
As the new Upper-Midwest Area President I'd like to say I'm looking forward to serving the area for the next 2 years.
It's difficult to believe that a month has already gone by since the meeting. Where does the time go?
The Spring 2004 meeting was held May 13-16 in Winnipeg Manitoba Canada and hosted by Manitoba Hydro. Despite a lot of snow falling on Wednesday, the meeting and tours went well. The only thing that was cancelled was the golf outing on Saturday. Fishing on Saturday looked like it was fun. Tours of Pointe du Bois/Slave Falls generating stations and MHEB control center/Dorsey HVDC were enjoyed as well.
The meeting on Friday had a wide range of topics and NERC CEH's were offered for those that chose to take a short exam at the end of the day. It's always interesting and informative to learn more about other systems.
NERC certification and continuing education were hot topics. As usual changes are looming, but nothing is certain yet. A motion was made for the DTEC committee to work towards becoming a CE provider. This will allow them to submit presentations from meetings to NERC for credits after the meeting takes place if necessary.
We had thirteen outstanding applicants for the UMW APDA scholarships this year. The winners were Lauren Luchka, daughter of Brian Luchka (MHEB) and Cammie Jennings daughter of Phil Jennings (KCPL). The scholarship committee had a difficult time choosing, as all the applicants were so good. Congratulations winners!
Area elections were held at this meeting. Here are the officers for the next two years:
President Jane Cocker RPU
Vice President Russ Mountjoy GRE
Treasurer Kevin Onken WPPI
Secretary Stan Johnson OTP
Trustee Darrell Cockerill MHEB
PR Don Herrly MDU
The banquet Saturday night was quite fun. Candid pictures were taken from Thursday on and shown on a screen and the banquet. I believe some of them will be posted to the website soon. The food was excellent and as usual a great many prizes were donated for the scholarship raffle.
All in all, it was an excellent meeting. It was a great chance to catch up with old friends and make a few new ones. Hats off to the crew at Manitoba Hydro for an informative and enjoyable meeting.
Hope to see you in this fall in Bismarck.
Regards,
Jane Cocker
UMW APDA
President