Authors

Andres Carvallo is a well-known visionary, technologist, speaker, author, and operations expert with 25 years of experience in the energy, wireless, computer, and software industries. Mr. Carvallo is a board member of the Utilities Telecom Council’s Smart Networks Council and an energy and technology advisor to The University of Texas at Austin, The University of Kansas, and The University of California Los Angeles. Having held executive management positions since 1992, he has been responsible for the successful development and commercialization of more than 40 products, in companies ranging from start-ups to market leaders. Currrently, Mr. Carvallo is the executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Proximetry, a leading global wireless network and performance management provider to the energy, public service, telecommunications, and transportation industries.  Prior to Proximetry, Mr. Carvallo was the executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Grid Net, a pioneer smart grid software platform provider. Before Grid Net, Mr. Carvallo was for 7 plus years the chief information officer and chief architect at Austin Energy, where he was responsible for the utility’s technology vision, planning, development, and operations. While at Austin Energy, Mr. Carvallo defined and started promoting the term “smart grid” in 2004. He also invented the first smart grid fully deployed in the United States. Mr. Carvallo became the premier smart grid industry thought leader and led a comprehensive and highly lauded technology transformation companywide. As the chief architect of the first successfully deployed smart grid in the United States, he has a unique prospective on the strategies, business cases, project management focus, architectures, best practices, technologies, and products that work and those that do not. Mr. Carvallo is a requested speaker on smart grid, CleanTech, green IT, SOA, wireless, and running IT as a business. His professional successes have been recognized with 25 industry awards, including the 2005 IT Executive of the Year by the Association of Information Technology Professionals; the 2006 Premier 100 IT Leader and Best in Class of Premier 100 by Computerworld; the 2006 CIO 100 Award by CIO Magazine; 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 InformationWeek 500; 2008 and 2009 Top 12 Green IT Company by Computerworld; 2009 Computerworld Honors Laureate, Finalist, and 21st Century Achievement Awards in Energy by Computerworld; 2009 CIO Hall of Fame Finalist by CIO Magazine; 2009 CIO of the Year by Energy Central; 2009 and 2010 UtiliQ #2 Company by Intelligent Utility magazine and IDC; and the 2011 Top 5 Smart Grid Utility Leader by FierceSmartGrid. Prior to working at Austin Energy, Mr. Carvallo was the CEO, EVP, and VP at four other startups, president and general manager at Philips Consumer Communications, general manager at Digital Equipment Corporation, general manager at Borland, product manager at SCO, and product manager for Windows at Microsoft. Mr. Carvallo received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kansas with a concentration in Robotics and Control Systems, and certificates in Utility Executive Management from the University of Idaho, Business Management from Stanford University, and Quality Management from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

John Cooper has 25 years experience in entrepreneurial, consulting, business development, sales, marketing, and research roles. Key consulting clients have included Austin Energy, Tropos Networks, Cellnet, the City of San Marcos, Xtreme Power, the Pecan Street Project, Sharp Labs of North America, and Grid Net. A nationally-recognized innovator in energy (FierceEnergy: list of the 15 most influential players in the energy industry in 2011, GreenTech Media: The Networked Grid 100: The Movers and Shakers of the Smart Grid in 2012), John is now pioneering new business models and consumer engagement strategies with NextWatt Solutions, an energy outsourcing services company that leverages innovative distributed energy technologies to create industry-specific solutions for commercial building owners. In 2010 and 2011, John worked with Grid Net, a pioneer Smart Grid software company, and with Sharp Labs to develop business models for virtual power plants. In 2009, John worked with Xtreme Power, an advanced lead acid energy storage company, to secure a multimillion dollar federal loan guarantee to implement energy storage for renewable energy integration on a wind farm in Maui. In 2009, John was also a leader in the Pecan Street Project, directing the Smart Grid committee and writing the final technical report for Phase One of the project. Earlier at Austin Energy, John ran the GENie Project in 2004 and 2005, leading utility management to explore broadband options for utility operations and launching the groundbreaking Smart Grid program. From 2003-2008, John was a Smart City consultant, focused on developing and implementing Smart City applications leveraging new wireless technologies. John's early career in electricity (1996-2000) featured work on pioneer wireless AMR and energy data software at CSW Communications. John helped launch the Texas Senate Research Center in 1986.  John is co-author of the 2011 industry best-seller The Advanced Smart Grid: Edge Power Driving Sustainability, which documents his work at Austin Energy building a pioneer smart grid and in the Pecan Street Project designing an energy internet. Smart Grid News called The Advanced Smart Grid “…far and away the best book yet about the smart grid.” John’s 2008 book The ABCs of Community Broadband: How Digital Transitions Will Transform America’s Communities, One at a Time is a guidebook on smart cities for community leaders. John is an accomplished public speaker and has published numerous articles on electricity and broadband innovation in traditional and new media. John has an MBA with honors from the McCombs Graduate School of Business and a BA in Government from the University of Texas at Austin.