Christopher E. Root, Industry Advisor, is a former accomplished utility executive with about 40 years with two utilities. He was a chief operating officer and senior vice president in multiple T&D and engineering areas for 26 years. He has vast experience in the operations, construction, and maintenance of a T&D utility and all phases of the engineering and design of the power system. Also, he has recent experience in a state with a high level of distributed generation and storage and integrating various utility operations due to multiple mergers and acquisitions. Finally, he is engaged in multiple industry organizations in leadership roles.