“Since I’ve been working my entire career to build a smarter grid, I am thrilled with the opportunities I can help uncover as chair of an initiative that is vital to our energy future,” McDonald said. “I’m invigorated by the challenge of helping so many committed energy industry leaders work together to frame the infrastructure that will power our planet for generations to come. Defining our standards will hasten the development of ever-improving solutions and help American innovation set the worldwide standard for Smart Grid efficiency, reliability and performance.”

The National Institute of Standards Development established the SGIP to handle its smart grid responsibilities under the 2007 Energy and Independence Security Act. Today, more than 450 participating and observing member organizations are working together to address technical issues and help determine standards to optimize the reliability, efficiency, security and interoperability of a modernized electric delivery system across America.

McDonald is uniquely qualified to serve as the Board’s first-ever chair, with decades of electrical industry leadership, engineering expertise and extensive board experience for various leading energy industry groups and governance organizations. His term will run for two years.

The SGIP Governing Board is elected by representatives of SGIP’s 400-plus participating-member organizations.

About John McDonald

John McDonald is general manager, marketing—transmission and distribution for GE Energy Services. In his 36 years of experience in the electric utility industry, John has developed power application software for both supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA)/energy management system (EMS) and SCADA/distribution management system (DMS) applications, developed distribution automation and load management systems, managed SCADA/EMS and SCADA/DMS projects and assisted Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) suppliers in the automation of their IEDs. John was elected to the Board of Governors of the IEEE-SA (Standards Association) for 2010-2011, focusing on long term IEEE Smart Grid standards global strategy.

In October of 2009, John was awarded the prestigious Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineer (OECE) award from the Purdue University.

John received his B.S.E.E. and M.S.E.E. (power engineering) degrees from Purdue University and an M.B.A. (finance) degree from the University of California-Berkeley. John is a member of Eta Kappa Nu (electrical engineering honorary) and Tau Beta Pi (engineering honorary), is a Fellow of IEEE and was awarded the IEEE Millennium Medal in 2000, the IEEE PES Excellence in Power Distribution Engineering Award in 2002 and the IEEE PES Substations Committee Distinguished Service Award in 2003. In his 23 years of Working Group and Subcommittee leadership with the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) Substations Committee, John led seven Working Groups and Task Forces that published standards/tutorials in the areas of distribution SCADA, master/remote terminal unit (RTU) and RTU/IED communications.

John is past president of the IEEE PES, is a member of IEC Technical Committee (TC) 57 Working Groups (WGs) 3 and 10, is the V.P. for Technical Activities for the U.S. National Committee (USNC) of CIGRE, past chair of the IEEE PES Substations Committee and IEEE Division VII past director. John is a member of the Advisory Committee for the annual DistribuTECH Conference, is a member of DOE’s Smart Grid Electricity Advisory Committee (EAC), is a member of NEMA’s Smart Grid Council and is on the Board of Directors of the GridWise Alliance.

John teaches a SCADA/EMS course at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a smart grid course for GE and substation automation, distribution SCADA and communications courses for various IEEE PES local chapters as an IEEE PES distinguished lecturer. John has published 34 papers in the areas of SCADA, SCADA/EMS, SCADA/DMS and communications and is a registered professional engineer (electrical) in California, Pennsylvania and Georgia.

John is co-author of the book Automating a Distribution Cooperative, from A to Z, published by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association Cooperative Research Network (CRN) in 1999. John was editor of the Substations Chapter and a co-author, for the book The Electric Power Engineering Handbook, co-sponsored by the IEEE PES and published by the CRC Press in 2000. John is editor-inchief and Substation Integration and Automation Chapter author for the book Electric Power Substations Engineering, Second Edition, published by Taylor & Francis/CRC Press in 2007.

About GE

GE is a diversified global infrastructure, finance and media company that's built to meet essential world needs. From energy, water, transportation and health to access to money and information, GE serves customers in more than 100 countries and employs more than 300,000 people worldwide.

GE serves the energy sector by developing and deploying technology that helps make efficient use of natural resources. With 60,000 global employees and 2008 revenues of $38.6 billion, GE Energy www.ge.com/energy is one of the world’s leading suppliers of power generation and energy delivery technologies. The businesses that comprise GE Energy - GE Power & Water, GE Energy Services and GE Oil & Gas - work together to provide integrated product and service solutions in all areas of the energy industry including coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear energy; renewable resources such as water, wind, solar and biogas; and other alternative fuels.

For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.ge.com GE is imagination at work.

For more information, contact:

Britton K. Cronin
GE Energy Services
+ 1 972 701 5452
[email protected]