The Future of Outage Communications: Two Expert Perspectives

John is Director of Business Development at Util-Assist, where he partners with utilities to enhance operations through technology, scalability, and process improvements. With over 38 years in electric utility operations, including his tenure as Vice-President of Centralized Operations Services at Alectra Utilities, he led major initiatives in outage management and emergency preparedness. This included operational leadership in catastrophic events such as the 2003 blackout, 2009 tornadoes, 2013 southern Ontario flooding, and the 2014 ice storms. John also supported the writing of industry plans such as the OPSRP (Ontario Power System Restoration Plan) and OEEP (Ontario Electricity Emergency Plan), defining the roles for electricity distributors in catastrophic events.

At Util-Assist, John is a champion of PowerAssist, our innovative outage contact centre solution. Under his leadership, PowerAssist has helped utilities transform the customer experience by providing fast, multi-channel support during outages—ensuring clear, reliable communication when it matters most.

Jeff is Manager, Operations Technologies at Util-Assist with deep expertise in telephony, digital transformation, and business continuity across the utilities sector. At Util-Assist, he has played a key role in shaping PowerAssist, the company’s omnichannel outage communications platform, which helps utilities deliver consistent, real-time updates to customers across phone, SMS, email, apps, and social media. With a proven track record of modernizing communication systems and driving digital adoption, Jeff specializes in bridging traditional telephony with emerging technologies like cloud-based VoIP, automation, and AI. His passion lies in helping utilities enhance outage response and customer experience through resilient, scalable, and future-ready communication strategies.