Welcome Your New Expert Interview Series: Mike Goggin, New Expert in the Digital Utility Group – [an Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Expert Interview]

Read on to benefit from his many years of experience as GIS has evolved and his insights on how and where utilities can truly embrace GIS today.

Matt Chester: Hi, Mike, thanks for joining us! These interviews serve to introduce you to our Energy Central Community, so I want to start by giving you a chance to introduce yourself. What is your role at SSP and how did you end up in this sector?

Mike Goggin: My role at SSP is Senior Product Manager for our Network Management products and services.  In this role I facilitate the strategy and direction for our software products and services specific to the electric and gas industry.

I started my career at Commonwealth Edison in 1992 as a drafter in the electric distribution Engineering department.  Working for a utility company you wear many hats and over my thirteen-and-a-half years there I was fortunate to learn a lot.  It was in the mid-to-late 90’s when I was introduced to GIS, ComEd was transforming from paper to digital to support the new outage management system.  I was lucky enough to make it onto the project team as a subject matter expert and my roles escalated from there.  I moved from the user support side of GIS to the IT support side trying my hand at development then eventually system administration and finally team lead.  It was a great experience, and I owe a lot to the leaders there that gave me a chance to learn and grow.  From ComEd I joined the Esri Utilities team for eight-and-a-half years which introduced me to hundreds of utilities across the country.  This was an incredible opportunity for me because it gave me so many perspectives at a time when GIS technology was evolving.  It gave me so much perspective and energy I wanted to get back hands-on to help people, so I moved from Esri to consulting and was there until I moved to Product Management in 2024.

MC: You believe strongly in the positive impact that knowing the location of things has on a utility. Can you dig into that to explain why GIS has become such a cornerstone for utility operations and how it has evolved over the years?

MG: Most everything a utility does has a spatial component.  They have assets, people, work, customers, and issues (to name a few) that are all somewhere and coincidence to each other.  GIS provides the capability to bring these things together and the ability to see how they interact with each other.  Either through spatial analysis or network analysis or the combination of both, a workflow can be enhanced greatly through visualization.  This enablement has evolved over the years and has been pushing the decision making further towards the people that need to make the decisions – this has been a great leap in GIS.

MC: What are some of the most exciting developments in utility mapping technology that you’ve been working on?

MG: The last five years have been the most exciting in my career ignited by Esri’s next generation network management, commonly called the utility network.  The grid is becoming more intelligent and so are the technologies to support it.  The utility network is how GIS will better support these technologies but also open a whole new opportunity for diverse workflows and analytics to support the business need.  It accomplishes this using advanced modeling and tools which provide the ability to align your digital system to your field or as constructed system.  I’m not a fan of buzz words but what I’m talking about is an asset and network digital twin.  Learning, researching, educating, and implementing the utility network has been my last 5 years and now I’m building products to support utilities in their journey.

MC: You’ve had the opportunity to work with dozens of utilities in the industry. What is one key piece of advice you would give to utilities that are looking to improve their infrastructure mapping and overall operational efficiency?

MG: In working with so many utilities over the years one thing I found they all have in common is their GIS data is not good.  If you ask the GIS editing group they will tell you it’s good or as good as the information they are given, but when you ask engineers, planners, operators, field technicians they all say the same thing – it’s not trusted.  My advice is start taking your data seriously and put governance around the system and the workflows.  The rigor of putting governance in place will reveal your weak points in the workflows and integrations.  And don’t stop there, work with your stakeholders to understand what is important to them and/or the systems they use – this information feeds right back into the governance planning to ensure quality, consistency, and timeliness of your data.  Remember this, analytics and technology like AI will only be beneficial if the data they use is good.

MC: What are you excited about when it comes to getting more involved in the Energy Central Community as an Expert? And in what areas do you most look forward to sharing your insights?

MG: I look forward to the collaboration.  Sharing views and getting into conversations with a diverse group of people to drive a topic forward.  My goal is to make GIS more relevant at utilities by increasing visibility to the value it provides to the business.  I have some thoughts around that and would love to hear opposing and supporting views from people – that is exciting.

________________________________________

Thanks to Mike for joining me for this interview and providing a wealth of insights and expertise to the Energy Central Community. You can trust that Mike will be available for you to reach out and connect and ask questions as an Energy Central member, so be sure to make him feel welcome when you see him across the platform.

Other expert interviews in this series can be read here, and if you are interested in becoming an expert, you can reach out to me or  apply here.