Speakers

Jeff Conklin is a Senior Director in the Energy Utilities Practice of J.D. Power and Associates. He is responsible for the firm’s electric utility business and residential customer satisfaction studies.

Mr. Conklin has over 20 years of experience in the energy utilities industry, working in the areas of customer service, distribution operations, and sales and marketing. Prior to joining J.D. Power and Associates, Mr. Conklin was a management consultant for nine years with Metzler & Associates. His areas of experience included re-engineering customer operations, strategic market planning, marketing and sales organization assessment and restructuring, telecommunications planning and strategy development, and utility merger integration. Prior to that, Conklin was a business center manager at A&C Enercom, where he developed and managed business opportunities with utilities across the Midwest. A&C Enercom provided marketing and demand-side management services to energy utilities. Earlier in his career, Mr. Conklin worked at Commonwealth Edison Company, where he held several marketing and sales positions.

Mr. Conklin earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering with emphasis on energy studies from Duke University. He received a master’s degree in management with concentrations in finance and marketing from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

Since the late '80s, Susan has devoted her career to pioneering ways of communicating energy efficiency to customers. After spending 17 years with the energy-engineering firm A&C Enercom where she led sales and marketing and was integral to building the business from an Atlanta staff of 5 to more than 600 in 40 offices across the country, Susan founded APOGEE in the early '90s with the vision of leveraging technology to more effectively deliver energy information. Today, she is the primary architect behind the firm's extensive line of sophisticated web-based applications including the HomeEnergySuite™, Study-Center and Kids Korner energy education website. Through her leadership, the firm, its people and its products, have achieved national recognition for analytical superiority, cutting-edge innovation, and excellence in performance and customer service.

Mr. Gilbert is a nationally recognized strategist in utility-customer competition, energy master planning, energy marketing and sales, and implementing energy efficiency and productivity measures. He has been retained by over 200 gas and electric utilities and over 100 industrial and commercial firms across the United States. His utility customers include virtually every major investor owned utility, Edison Electric Institute (EEI), the Electric Power Institute (EPRI), the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and the American Public Power Association (APPA).

John has over 12 years experience in the utilities and energy services industry, plus 5 years addressing the eBusiness and IT needs developed as a result of energy industry restructuring and deregulation. Additionally, he has 16 years experience in sales and marketing of engineered products and related services.

John’s utility and energy services industry expertise was gained at Sempra Energy, and successor companies San Diego Gas & Electric and Enova Energy. He successfully led large regulated and unregulated units as Vice President of Marketing and Customer Service in SDG&E, and as Senior Vice President of Enova Energy, Energy Pacific, and Sempra Energy Solutions. John was a key senior management contributor as Sempra Energy created business strategies to prosper during industry restructuring.

Bill LeBlanc, Senior Advisor for E source, is also president of the Boulder Energy Group. He most recently held the positions of vice president, marketing; vice president, consulting; and vice president, research for E source information services. Bill has more than 20 years of experience in strategic marketing, new product development, pricing, market research, and demand-side management. Bill helps utilities understand the intersection between the customer and the utility's products and services, and specializes in maximizing marketing effectiveness. He has also done extensive research on social marketing. Before joining E source, he worked for six years as a director at Barakat & Chamberlin, a national consulting firm. He also founded and served for several years as president of the Association of Energy Services Professionals. Bill served as a project manager at EPRI from 1988 to 1991, overseeing projects focused on demand management, rates, marketing, and customer behavior; developing promotional programs for EPRI products and services; and conducting conferences and workshops. Bill holds a BS and an MS in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and a BA in management economics from Claremont McKenna College.

Ken Futch is president of Ken Futch and Associates, an Atlanta-based training company that teaches organizations and individuals how to turn opportunity into success

Before founding his company in 1986, he was in sales and management with AT&T, where he was recognized for being the top revenue producer in a group of 6,000 salespeople. Ken's success led to his selection as a top trainer at AT&T's prestigious National Sales School

He is a native of the "Tar Heel" state and is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was commissioned as a lieutenant and served three years in the U.S. Army, including a tour in Vietnam as a combat platoon leader.

A past president of the Georgia Speakers Association and a former Toastmasters International humor champion, he delivers more than 100 high-impact programs annually. He has now trained over 100,000 people in seminars presented throughout North America and Europe.

He is the author of the book Take Your Best Shot, which is filled with priceless insights and stories about recognizing and achieving opportunities in life.

A passionate believer in lifelong learning, he has continued his own development by earning the designation of Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) from the National Speakers Association—a five-year educational and experiential process.

Ed Thomas is Managing Partner of Market Development Group (www.marketdevelop.com), an energy utility marketing and management consulting firm based in Montrose, Colorado. The Home Energy Makeover Contest (www.homeenergymakeover.org) and CFL Light Bulb Fund Raiser (www.cflfundraiser.org) are among the award-winning programs he has helped develop and implement for various organizations. Ed has authored an industry report on Home Energy Audits, co-authored a report on Load Management Programs, and published reports on Home Energy Loans and Geo Heat Pumps. Ed earned a Master’s of Science degree in Marketing from The American University, Washington, DC; and a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Communications from Butler University, Indianapolis. Among Ed's other notable achievements, he served as a U.S. Navy spokesperson during Desert Storm, quoted in USA Today and elsewhere.

As one of APOGEE's founding employees Dan provides customers with his expertise in development and technical implementation of website functionalities. Dan has been a key architect of many of APOGEE's more advanced applications such as THE DEMAND EXCHANGE®, a secure trading platform and settlement software which has gained world-wide recognition for its simplicity and ease of use both by utilities and their customers. Dan was also the primary developer of the system interfaces for Study-Center.com, a recognized leader in the energy industry distance eLearning field.

Dan’s technical focus has always remained on the customer’s key parameters: intuitive ease of use, business objectives and budget parameters. He is highly proficient in nearly all areas of Internet programming technology and is also well versed in several developmental languages. Before joining Apogee, he performed similar IT and programming functions with the energy-engineering firm A&C Enercom.