Utility Perspectives on Resilience Investments  

Monica DeAngelo is responsible for engaging with all federal agencies related to regulated and unregulated interests on behalf of Southern Company and its 14 operating companies and subsidiaries. Monica ensures alignment between federal requirements and company capabilities. As a senior member of the Southern Policy and Strategy team, she influences policy and project opportunity outcomes by leading political and legislative efforts throughout the U.S. Prior to joining Southern Company, she held leadership positions as a civil servant with the U.S. Department of Navy and U.S. Department of Energy and began her federal career as an engineer with FERC. She also provided energy expertise to the U.S. Department of Defense in former consulting roles. Monica received a MS in environmental engineering from Columbia University, New York, New York, a BS in environmental engineering from Wilkes University, Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, and holds a CEM certification.

Alexandra "Alex" Young is the Manager of Defense and Federal Customer Solutions with the Edison Electric Institute (EEI). Her focus is on enhancing collaboration between investor-owned utilities and the Department of Defense. Prior to joining EEI, Alex was an Energy Resilience Analyst with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory delivering strategic analysis and project management for energy, resilience, and sustainability initiatives. Alex also has provided direct mission readiness and program support to the U.S. Army Office of Energy Initiatives, enabling more than 30 renewable energy and resilience projects across the United States. She holds a Master of Science in environmental resource management from the University of South Carolina and a Bachelor of Science in community, environment, and development, from Pennsylvania State University.

Paul received a BS in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Business Administration from Old Dominion University and has over 38 years of experience with Dominion Energy. Paul's experience includes work in Design, Planning, Operations, and Key Accounts where was the main liaison between the Federal Government and Dominion Energy. For the past 14 years, Paul has been responsible for Dominion Energy's Federal Energy Solution Group with overall responsibility for their Utilities Privatization and UESC programs. During this period, he assisted Dominion Energy's privatized installations in implementing multiple projects to improve their reliability, resilience, and sustainability which resulted in an 88-100% decrease in outages and the installation of multiple emergency back-up generators and microgrids. Paul also oversaw the successful completion of multiple UESC projects and the award of projects currently in construction at the Pentagon, MCB-Quantico, NSF Dahlgren, and MCAS-Beaufort.

Ariel Horowitz is the Deputy Director for Grid Modernization at the Grid Deployment Office (GDO). Prior to joining GDO, Ariel was a Senior Program Director at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), where she directed their market development work related to grid modernization, energy storage, resiliency, and clean transportation. She also oversaw much of MassCEC's work supporting the tech-to-market transition of new energy innovations by researchers and early-stage companies. Ariel joined MassCEC from Synapse Energy Economics, where she provided expert witnessing services and analytical support to clients including U.S. EPA and state regulators. She holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Swarthmore College.