The concept of a Smart Grid has matured to the point of reality with the recent advances in communication, IT and control technologies. This ability to modernize the electrical grid has now entered the vital stage of developing a set of standards to allow grid stakeholders to maximize interoperability of all major components of the Smart Grid initiative. Mr. McDonald will present an overview of Smart Grid applications with their value propositions, the NIST roadmap and the role of the SDOs (Standard Development Organizations). A description of recent Smart Grid deployments will also be presented.

John D. McDonald, P.E., is General Manager, Marketing for GE Energy T&D. In his 35 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 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 twenty-one years of Working Group and Subcommittee leadership with the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) Substations Committee, John led seven Working Groups and Task Forces who 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 Co-Vice Chair of IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee (SCC) 36, is a Member of IEC Technical Committee (TC) 57 Working Groups (WGs) 3 and 10, is the VP for Technical Activities for the US National Committee (USNC) of CIGRE, and is the Past Chair of the IEEE PES Substations Committee. John is the IEEE Division VII Director in 2008-2009. 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 Task Force, and is on the Board of Directors of the GridWise Alliance. John will receive the 2009 Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineer Award from Purdue University in October.

John teaches a SCADA/EMS course at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a SCADA/Substation and Feeder Automation course at Iowa State University, and substation automation, distribution SCADA and communications courses for various IEEE PES local chapters as an IEEE PES Distinguished Lecturer. John has published thirty-one 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-in-Chief, and Substation Integration and Automation Chapter author, for the book Electric Power Substations Engineering, Second Edition, published by Taylor & Francis/CRC Press in 2007.

The meeting will be held at Olin College in Needham, MA. A light snack will be served at 6:00PM and the presentation will start at 6:30PM. A brief Boston Chapter PES Meeting will precede the presentation. For further information please call Ron Tabroff at 978-535-2815 or e-mail Ron at r.tabroff@ieee.org. Directions to Olin College: Take Route 95/128 to exit 19B (Highland Avenue, Needham). Follow Highland Avenue for 1.5 miles to a three-way intersection with Chapel and May Streets; bear slight right onto Chapel Street (to the right of the gas station). Take a right at the first light onto Great Plain Avenue/Rte 135. Proceed on Great Plain Avenue for 1.5 miles and the Olin College campus will be on the right. Enter the campus at "Olin Way" and follow the road around to the left to parking lot A, which provides access to all campus buildings. The meeting is being held at the Auditorium at Milas Hall.

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