We are so grateful to those who have come together to form the Local Organizing Committee for the PAC World Americas Conference 2025.
The members of the PAC World Conference Local Organizing Committee are listed below alphabetically by last name:
Farrokh Aminifar, Ph.D., IEEE Senior Member is Principal Advisor at Danovo Energy Solutions, where he leads initiatives in synchronized measurement technology, wide-area monitoring, protection and control (WAMPAC), and grid modernization. He has over 17 years of combined industry, research, and academic experience spanning utilities, software product development, and advanced power system applications. Dr. Aminifar has led major projects for utilities across North America, Europe, and Latin America, including PMU/WAMS deployment, inverter-based resource monitoring, cloud-based grid applications, and AI-enabled power system analytics. He serves as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Power Systems and IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery and actively contributes to several IEEE and NASPI task forces. Farrokh has authored more than 200 technical publications, received over 11,900 citations (H-index: 59), and is recognized internationally for his contributions to synchrophasor technology, power system resilience, and sensor data analytics.
John Bettler, PE has a BSEE from Iowa State and a MSEE from Illinois Institute of Technology. John has worked at the Chicago area power company ComEd since 1990.
John has been the Principal Engineer for ComEd’s relay section since 2010. In 2019, he became the lead and principal architect for ComEd’s Digital Smart Substation (DSS) program, which utilizes IEC61850. His team has over 15 DSS Station in service currently. Also, John has developed and given several 61850 training classes.
Also, John teaches power classes at IIT and UW Madison. He is a PE in Illinois & Michigan.
David G. Hart, PhD, Executive Advisor, Senior Vice President, has over 30 years of experience in the power industry, including protection and control, power system automation, smart metering, and AMI systems. Before his work at Quanta Technology, he developed numerous protection and control products. David held senior management positions at ABB, where he developed AMI-related products and systems. At Elster, he was responsible for AMI engineering, product management, and quality organizations. At Quanta Technology, David and his team provide consulting support to utilities on AMI systems, feeder automation, coordination studies, IEC 61850, and advanced protection applications. As the direct head of Protection & Control, he guides the overall business strategy, client and program proposals, and project execution. David holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from Clemson University and is a Fellow member of IEEE/PES. His work has earned significant recognition throughout his career, including over 30 technical patents and numerous published articles.
Rich Hunt, PE, Executive Advisor, Quanta Technology, has over 30 years of experience in the electric power industry, specializing in protective relaying. Over the last 15 years, he has focused on specifying and designing digital substations, including IEC 61850, process bus, non-conventional instrument transformers, networking, and time synchronization.
Rich earned his BSEE and MSEE from Virginia Tech. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, a member of the Main Committee of the IEEE Power System Relaying & Control Committee, and a registered Professional Engineer.
Bogdan Kasztenny specializes in power system protection and control. In his decade-long academic career, Dr. Kasztenny taught power system and signal processing courses at several universities and conducted applied research for several relay manufacturers. Since joining relay manufacturers in 1999, Bogdan has designed, applied, and supported protection, control, and fault-locating products, with their global installed base counted in thousands of installations. Bogdan is an IEEE Fellow, a Senior Fulbright Fellow, a Distinguished Member of CIGRE, and a registered professional engineer in the province of Ontario. Bogdan has authored over 220 technical papers and holds over 60 patents.
Patrick Louka, P.E. is a Manager in the Asset Management Department within the Distribution Protection, Automation, & Controls Division of Duke Energy. He supports the Power Grid Operations Carolinas East Region.
Jonathan Sykes, PE, IEEE Fellow, Vice President of Advanced Application at Danovo Energy Solutions, has throughout his 45 years in the industry been recognized for his contributions and leadership at SRP, PG&E, SEL, Luma, IEEE, NERC, WECC, and Danovo Energy Solutions. He has published papers and is a subject matter expert in protection applications, remedial action schemes, digital substations, system integration, asset strategy, and wildfire mitigation. At SRP, he pioneered the conversion of solid state and electromechanical relays to microprocessor-based relays and was the chief architect of the 500kV relay modernization project. At PG&E, he championed the development of the relay asset management process for over 30,000 relays of all vintages. This led to the establishment of a process that set a relay replacement capital budget and the integration of relay upgrade projects within the larger capitol portfolio. While working at PG&E he helped set the foundation for wildfire mitigation techniques such as fast tripping and using advanced technologies to detect faults and ignitions. Working with IEEE he chaired the technical paper describing methods to mitigate ignitions and lower the risks of wildfires.
