The Utility Vegetation Management Podcast

In this episode we discuss the “Rule of 70” with Larry Kahn, the Distinguished Research Fellow at Tulane Law School’s UVMI. This is the first episode, in a planned series of discussions with Larry, where we hope to raise issues worthy of consideration and debate in the UVM industry.  During this episode Larry, Steve and Nick explain what the Rule of 70s is and why it may be one of the most importa...

In this episode (and at the suggestion of one of our subscribers- thanks Eric Owens at CNUC!) we interview Lewis Payne from the New York Power Authority (NYPA), the largest state-owned utility in the United States. Lewis (Lew) Payne is the Manager ROW/Environmental and a well-respected 30+ year veteran in the Transmission UVM industry.  During this thoughtful discussion, Lew discusses his work on...

In this episode we interview Eliecer Viamontes, the recently appointed President and CEO of Entergy Texas. Entergy serves about 3 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas and they are no strangers to Utility Vegetation Management or the implications of tree and power line conflicts.  During this inspiring discussion Eliecer not only outlines current priorities and ac...

In this episode we interview Steve Martin from Powerlink Queensland. Steve is the Senior Strategist for Land, Research and Development for Powerlink and works out of the greater Brisbane area of Australia.   During this lively down-under discussion, Steve and the podcast hosts discuss a wide array of issues ranging from animal grazing on transmission ROWs to managing our UVM workloads as an asset...

In this episode we interview Teri French, Vice President, Forestry Services, and Patrick Howe, Vegetation Management Front Line Manager at Hydro One. In this thoughtful discussion, Teri and Patrick talk about running an in-house UVM program in Canada’s most populous province, Ontario. Hydro One is a utility that is committed to operating safely in an environmentally and socially responsible manner...

In this episode we interview Matt Palmer, Vegetation Specialist - Standards, at Ergon Energy Network and Energex, part of the Energy Queensland group.   Ergon Energy Network and Energex are distribution service providers that together deliver approximately 35,000 GWh of electricity right across Queensland to around 2.3 million customers. The network consists of more than 178,000 km of overhead pow...

** 0.5 CEU credit from the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) available to Utility Arborist Association members. Complete the questionnaire on the UAA website here . ** In this episode we interview Professor Richard Hauer from the College of Natural Resources at The University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point (UWSP). An academic institution known by many of our listeners, UWSP continues to...

Centre for Energy Advancement through Technological Innovation (CEATI) This episode features an interview with Rob Young, Executive Director of the Registered Professional Foresters Association of Nova Scotia, and Technical Advisor to the research organization CEATI. Rob spent over 25 years developing and leading Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM) programs at Nova Scotia Power for 5,500 km of...

** 1 CEU credit from the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) is available to Utility Arborist Association members. Complete the questionnaire on the UAA website here . ** In this episode we interview Randy Gimple, a founding partner of Carlson, Calladine & Peterson LLP , a litigation firm in San Francisco, California. Over his 34 years in the practice, he has handled hundreds of catas...

** 0.5 CEU credit from the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) available to Utility Arborist Association members. Complete the questionnaire on the UAA website here . ** This episode features an interview is with a Professional Engineer, Otto Lynch, President & CEO of Power Line Systems. Conductors can move during the course of a day under different electrical loading and weather scen...

In this episode we interview David Bayard, the Vegetation Manager at Seattle City Light, the 10th largest publicly owned utility in the United States. With a job that includes oversight and involvement with both UVM and the municipal/urban forest, David provides insights into what some have wrongly considered to be competing interests. During this thoughtful, and at times philosophic interview, we...

In this episode we interview Sven Przywarra, Co-Founder of LiveEO, to discuss satellite remote sensing for Utility Vegetation Management. In recent years, the privatization of space and a reduction in the costs of accessing space has led to a proliferation in the number of earth observation satellites and the capabilities of these constellations. This raises the question of whether the T&D ind...

This episode includes a short round up from the Trees and Utilities conference in Minneapolis followed by an in-depth interview with our first Australian guest, Heath Frewin, Manager Strategy - Vegetation at Essential Energy. Essential Energy is one of Australia’s largest networks delivering electricity to a staggering 95% of New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, including some 865,000...

Liberty Utilities is an operating company of Algonquin Power, serving over 1 million customers across 13 US States and 1 Canadian Province with some $6.8BN in regulated utility assets.  On this episode, our guest is Jason Grossman, Manager - Vegetation Management at Liberty Utilities (Missouri). In this discussion, Jason will cover:  How he got started in Utility Vegetation Management The impact o...

** 0.5 CEU credits from the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) are available to Utility Arborist Association members. Complete the questionnaire on the UAA website here . ** The Utility Arborist Association (UAA) – Decades of Support for the UVM Industry  For almost a half century, the Utility Arborist Association has worked towards its stated mission that  “We will drive excellence, inn...

** 1 CEU credit from the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) available to Utility Arborist Association members. Complete the questionnaire on the UAA website here . ** For decades, the UVM industry has been supported by several organizations known to us all. A short list of those groups includes the UAA, ISA, EEI, Arbor Day, CEATI and EPRI. In this podcast, we speak to a new academically-...

** 0.5 CEU credit from the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) available to Utility Arborist Association members. Complete the questionnaire on the UAA website here . ** The new California Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety – an interview with Director Caroline Thomas Jacobs The increasing prevalence of devastating wildland fires in California has resulted in the creation of a new uti...

An introduction to The Utility Vegetation Management Podcast. This pilot episode describes the three principal reasons we do this work: The first reason we manage trees near power lines has to do with preventing outages. In most places across North America, tree and powerline conflicts are the single largest cause of power outages on distribution systems. Trees, either growing into, or more often...