Ronnie S. Mauldin

GridCORTEX is the intelligence layer above the grid, and a complete ecosystem that carries utility work from market and account intelligence through pursuit, planning and grid planning. It sits on top of the systems a utility already owns and fuses their data with NVIDIA accelerated simulation, optimization, vision, physical AI, and generative AI to support analysis across those systems. Operating actions stay with the operator, and what any engagement is permitted to write back is set in its scope.

• Nine modules, ten agent categories, and 24 operating domains: Operations, Resilience, Asset, Edge, Customer, Connect, Enterprise, Nuclear, ISO/RTO Markets, and Physical AI.
• Sales and planning modules that take an opportunity from account research and event intelligence through pursuit strategy, quarterly planning and client-ready documents.
• The Physical AI agent: robotics use case and pilot designs for utility inspection with autonomous drones, ground robots, and edge AI devices, subject to site, safety, and operating approvals.
• NVIDIA technology stack across Earth-2, Isaac ROS 2, Jetson Orin, Omniverse, PhysicsNeMo, cuOpt, RAPIDS/cuML, Metropolis/TAO, NeMo/NIM, NeMo Retriever, NeMo Guardrails, Morpheus, and TensorRT.

Working name pending trademark clearance.

Leading the NVIDIA Power & Utilities practice: go-to-market strategy, the NVIDIA alliance motion and utility client engagement.

• Built UtilityIQ, the practice's utility AI use case library and solution ecosystem, with buyer, budget line, NVIDIA stack mapping, pilot design, and executive pitch for each entry across 24 utility operating domains.
• Leading with the four beachhead domains utility executives are funding today, Connect, Resilience, Asset, and Operations, then expanding as trust and value are demonstrated.
• Leading go-to-market strategy including Discovery Workshop → Scoped Pilot → Production Agent engagement model and NVIDIA co-sell motion across the power and utilities vertical.

Led growth of Wipro's utilities consulting business in grid modernization and energy transition. Focus areas included ADMS, DMS, OMS, SCADA, DERMS, DRMS, IT/OT integration, and expansion into engineering, construction, operations, and GIS-related utility opportunities.

• Drove business development by defining and executing growth strategies for strategic utility accounts and developing C-level relationships.
• Led differentiated solutions focused on digital transformation, vendor consolidation, and new operating models.
• Guided multi-million-dollar engagements from proposal strategy through delivery.
• Shaped client-facing market positioning, thought leadership, and executive advisory around advanced grid modernization.
• Mentored consulting team talent while strengthening utility modernization offerings and partner ecosystem.

Selected engagements: Architected GridVISION (flagship overlay platform), Suite 16 (16-domain utility modernization framework), and MC-LLI (mission-critical large-load infrastructure market category); National Grid DER Aggregation and GridVISION 2.0 / AI for Operations and FERC 2222; Avangrid FERC 881 initiative.

Led strategic consulting and modernization development for electric utility grid management solutions focused on digital capabilities, infrastructure optimization, and future-state operating models.

• Led consulting services to utilities through operational assessments and future-focused smart grid improvement strategies.
• Managed projects covering upgrades and implementations of ADMS, DERMS, DMS, OMS, SCADA, EMS, GIS, and related platforms.
• Drove strategic direction for offerings aligned to business goals and long-term smart utility digital grid transformation.
• Supported presales, proposals, white papers, case studies, and strategic partnerships across the utility technology landscape.

Selected engagement: Hydro One operations change management consulting, ADMS upgrade assessment, and AMI 2.0 / ADMS integration.

Directed consulting and systems integration initiatives supporting smart utility digital grid modernization. Built and led a team of senior subject matter experts delivering operations expertise, workflow strategy, presales support, and implementation guidance across major utility programs.

• Defined digital utility strategy and offering direction aligned with long-term portfolio goals.
• Oversaw projects supporting upgrades and implementations of ADMS, DERMS, and related grid operating systems.
• Guided feature development, solution packaging, market insight generation, and investment direction.
• Supported proactive and responsive RFP activities, proposals, and partner coordination with platform providers and hyperscalers.
• Established thought leadership through white papers, case studies, and modernization collateral.

Selected engagements: PSEG Long Island DER SCADA migration from T-SCADA to D-SCADA and DER aggregation; OSI DERMS implementation; Duke Energy GE OMS support and GE DMS migration/support.

Recruited out of the control room for the operational depth, on a platform he had taken delivery of as a customer, modeled a secondary mesh network inside, and then operated on shift. Assembled and led a team of SMEs in presales, sales, deployment, and services supporting mission-critical control systems and diverse smart grid technologies including ADMS, OMS, DMS, SCADA, DERMS, EMS, GMS, GIS, and AMI.

• Partnered with smart grid teams to identify opportunities, understand client needs, and shape ADMS solution strategy.
• Monitored market trends, analyzed competitors, and provided strategic guidance aligned to emerging utility needs.
• Collaborated on proposal development, deal structuring, presentations, demonstrations, and proof-of-concept engagements.
• Worked with product management and development teams to enhance smart grid solutions and resolve defects.
• Provided consulting, training, go-live support, troubleshooting, and optimization aligned to client growth strategies.

Key accomplishments: set new sales records each year from 2016 to 2022; devised phased digital grid strategies; created global product demonstration strategies; pioneered the cloud-based virtual server environment for ADMS demonstrations that became Schneider's global default.

Selected utility engagements: Austin Energy ADMS upgrade; Puget Sound Energy ADMS; PG&E ADMS, wildfire mitigation, and operator training; CLECO ADMS; APS downtown mesh network modeling, ADMS, and DERMS (ADMS and DERMS hybrid); Xcel Energy, Liberty Utilities, Hydro One, Toronto Hydro, Nova Scotia Power, EPCOR, South Australia Power Network, Endeavour Energy Australia, and Ausgrid ADMS implementations.

Twenty-two years in real-time transmission and distribution operations, joining in 1993 as an electrical system controller aide and rising to supervisor of system operations in the energy control center. Built and ran the blackstart restoration program. Led NERC and ERCOT compliance audits, emergency response readiness, and operator development, and served as the operations subject matter expert on four successive control system implementations.

The system he operated. Austin Energy is one of the largest municipally owned electric utilities in the United States, serving a 437 square mile territory across Austin and parts of Travis and Williamson counties. During his tenure that was just under 500,000 meters and close to a million people, on 620 miles of transmission at 69 kV, 138 kV, and 345 kV, 11,400 miles of distribution at 12.5 kV primary with a 34.5 kV network, and 74 substations. Transmission voltage control included 12 auto transformers, 21 capacitor banks, four 345/138 kV reactors, and a 138 kV STATCOM. Generation exceeded 3,000 MW across Decker, Sand Hill, Fayette, the South Texas Project, wind, solar, and biomass, with Decker as the contracted blackstart resource. Interconnections ran to LCRA at 138 kV and 345 kV with shared stations, to CenterPoint at 345 kV with a shared station, and to campus and waste-to-energy cogeneration. All time peaks in that period were 2,714 MW in August 2011 and 2,195 MW in February 2011. The utility publishes the current figures, now 633.5 miles of transmission, 12,337 miles of distribution, 81 substations, and 575,087 customers.

• February 2011, ERCOT-wide rotating outages. Supervisor overseeing the control center when ERCOT directed emergency load shed across the state during the cold snap. Load shed at that point is what stops the interconnection from collapsing. The magnitude exceeded what the utility was set up to calculate automatically, so he figured the shed blocks by hand on shift, and Austin Energy delivered the reduction it was directed to deliver.
• Every major event on that system, for 22 years. He worked the control room through the ice storms of December 1998, February 2003, and January 2007; the Halloween flood of October 2013 and the Memorial Day and Halloween floods of 2015; the tornadoes, 21 of them on 10 separate dates touching Travis County across the tenure, the strongest an F4 in the Pedernales Valley near Lakeway on 27 May 1997; the ERCOT rotating outage events of April 2006 and February 2011; and the August 2011 heat emergency that set the utility's all time peak. Storms, floods, ice, tornadoes, blackouts, and load shed from 1993 to November 2015, plus ERCOT blackstart training and multi-utility restoration exercises every year of it.
• Independent power producers embedded in the system. Interconnected generation on his system included the University of Texas campus cogeneration complex, a roughly 50 MW combined heat and power microgrid, tied in at 69 kV, and three waste-to-energy cogeneration plants connected on automatically switched overhead primary, alongside contracted wind, the 30 MW Webberville solar project, and biomass. Coordinating switching, clearances, and restoration with producers embedded in the transmission and distribution system was routine control room work at Austin Energy years before the industry settled on the term DER for it.
• SCADA, operated on shift for 22 years. The Harris system from 1993 to 2003, then ABB Ranger from 2003 onward. Operations subject matter expert on the Ranger implementation: operator training, go live, and post go live support.
• Outage management, three generations of it. Helped design the in-house trouble call and outage analysis system, then served as operations subject matter expert on the GE PowerOn OMS with GE Smallworld and Convergent Group, then on the Telvent and Schneider ADMS with KEMA. On the last two that meant requirements and selection, factory and site acceptance testing, operator training, go live, and post go live support.
• Blackstart and emergency response. Built and maintained the blackstart plan, load shedding procedures, and incident command activation, and kept the control center ready to execute them.
• Compliance. Led NERC compliance audits performed by Texas Reliability Entity and served as steward of operational policies, procedures, and switching practice.
• Switching and system analysis. Performed the demand and loading calculations behind transmission and distribution switching orders, directed field crews through clearance and restoration, and maintained substation and system one-line diagrams for Austin Energy and for large customers.
• Storm restoration. Ran major disturbance restoration for thunderstorms, windstorms, and ice storms: prioritizing trouble calls, analyzing circuit configuration, dispatching and tracking crews, and protecting crew safety through the switching.
• Operator development. Led staffing, training, and development of control center personnel on 12 hour rotating shifts, and trained more than 200 call center employees on how a trouble call travels and what the control center needs from it.
• Tools built outside the job description. Wrote and maintained a transmission circuit switching order generator that assembles a full clearance order from an equipment database, a distribution load switching calculator, an equipment ratings reference, controller training scenarios drawn from real system events, and a NERC certification training program for new controllers.

Operational differentiator: he worked EMS and SCADA with paper logs and hand calculations before the OMS, DMS, and ADMS implementations, and then sat on the utility side of each of those implementations. That is why the vendor and consulting work later reads as operations first and product second.

NERC Certified System Operator on the reliability credential, the certification a reliability coordinator has to hold, awarded June 2004 and carried on shift through the control room years. Certification number RA200406162, valid through June 2018.