WPP

OVERVIEW

Virtual meetings present new and different challenges to both meeting facilitators and participants. Adjustments need to be made to support the virtual meeting environment ranging from how to prepare for the meeting to how to handle difficult situations during the meeting.

Byron Woertz and Shelli Nyland, both of WECC, will lead an interactive discussion on how to get the most of any virtual meeting experience. Byron and Shelli are both well-versed in virtual meetings and have a stellar presentation prepared for us. The presentation covers both the technical side of meeting facilitation: What to do and When, as well as the less technical side of meeting facilitation: How do you deal with a difficult situation or attendee? As a group, we'll identify tangible techniques that can be employed to minimize the impact of a difficult attendee or situation. Both meeting facilitators and meeting participants will benefit from this training.

About Byron:

Byron is Manager of WECC’s System Adequacy Planning Department. His primary responsibility is managing the team responsible for developing data bases such as the Anchor Data Set, 10-year and 20-year reliability assessments and future scenarios to support reliability in the Western Interconnection. The System Adequacy Department also supports WECC’s Reliability Assessment Committee (RAC) and its associated Subcommittees (Modeling and Validation, Production Cost Data, Production Cost Modeling, Studies and System Review).

From 1997 through 2009, Byron worked at the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) with responsibilities in client relations, stakeholder relations and project management. He was part of the CAISO’s start-up team as well as the market redesign effort that led to a transition to nodal markets for energy, ancillary services and congestion management starting in 2009.

Prior to the CAISO, Byron worked for Pacific Gas and Electric Company for 18 years with responsibilities in community and governmental relations, general management, customer services, energy management and solar energy. He also worked briefly in the telecommunications industry.

Byron holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley, an M.B.A. from Sacramento State University and a Project Management Professional (PMP) credential from the Project Management Institute. He lives with his wife, Marlene, in Cottonwood Heights, UT and has a son, Evan, working in Irvine, CA and living in Long Beach, CA and a daughter, Erica, in medical school in Milwaukee, WI.

About Shelli:

Shelli Nyland grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico and attended college in Thatcher, Arizona then Tempe, Arizona. She worked her way through college as a graphic designer. She holds a B.S. in Business Management from Arizona State University.

Shelli started at WECC in 2015 as an Administrative Assistant. In that role, she supported the Planning Coordination Committee (PCC) and Transmission Expansion Planning Policy Committee (TEPPC) and some of their subgroups. Because of her support of the Joint PCC-TEPPC Review Task Force, she was promoted to Project Specialist in Reliability Planning and Performance Analysis (RPPA) to support the transition to the Reliability Assessment Committee (RAC). This support included completing all the administrative tasks for the new committee structure.

Following turnover in the Administrative team and training the new administrative assistants, Shelli became the Supervisor of Administrative Services and Support. She oversaw several improvements in the administrative support provided to all WECC’s technical committees. Shelli has recently been promoted to Project Coordinator in WECC’s External Affairs department. Her primary responsibility is to support the Joint Guidance Committee (JGC) as it transitions to its new responsibilities to aligning the work of the technical committees with WECC’s strategic direction, objectives, and priorities.

She has lived in Utah since 2015 and currently lives in Tooele, UT with her husband, Kent, and their two akita dogs.