Water, energy and air management: How smart technology contributes to the bottom line
A panel of experts including Peter Lake, Board Member, Texas Water Development Board; John Miri, Chief Administration Officer, Lower Colorado River Authority and Chris Garyet, Sales Manager at Sigfox discuss how smart technologies contribute to the bottom line in water, energy and air management fields.
Peter Lake was appointed to the Texas Water Development Board by Governor Greg Abbott on December 15, 2015. Lake has held a variety of financial roles across a number of industries. Previously, he acted as director of research and head of automated trading at Gambit Trading, a member firm of the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In this capacity, he led the firm’s market research initiatives and directed the development of its first automated trading programs. As one of the firm’s proprietary market makers he also traded interest rate derivatives, primarily focusing on U.S. Treasury bond futures. He has also served as director of business development for Lake Ronel Oil Company, where he focused on financial analysis of upstream oil and gas opportunities. In addition, he served as director of special operations for VantageCap Partners. In this position he played a key role in the due diligence, valuation, and transactional aspects of the successful divestment of the firm’s primary investment. Lake graduated with a bachelor of arts in public policy with a specialization in economics from the University of Chicago, and he earned a masters of business administration from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Lake was born and raised in Tyler, Texas.
John Miri is the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) for a billion-dollar public energy and water utility serving more than a million people in the US State of Texas. The executive leads a diverse portfolio of functions including information technology (IT), engineering, cyberphysical security, public safety, enterprise risk, human resources, fleet, project management, employee safety, facilities, supply chain, real estate, parks, and records.
Miri is currently leveraging technology and startup experience to transform LCRA’s business functions for dramatically improved efficiency; integrating cyber and physical security to improve resiliency of 5,100 miles of the Texas electric grid; driving cost savings on more than $661 million in annual purchasing of goods and services; and building a culture of excellence, innovation, learning, and enlightened risk taking.
Prior to joining LCRA, Miri was CEO of Bluewater Technology Services, a company providing strategic consulting to a distinguished roster of clients ranging from large government agencies to venture-funded startups.
Miri is an internationally-recognized expert on using technology to transform organizations for better administrative performance. His many articles and research reports have been published in GOVERNING, Government Technology, Public CIO, FutureStructure, and Emergency Management magazines. In his early career, Miri was the chief architect of a number of innovative software products in energy risk management, human resources, social media, data analytics, and business process automation. He was awarded US Patent 7,571,138 for an energy risk software system that was successfully deployed to ERCOT, Williams Energy, Dynegy, ConocoPhillips, and others. Miri graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Physics.
Chris Garyet is a IoT industry veteran with over 10 years of experience in connectivity with Georgia Institute of Technology Research Institute, National Instruments, Future Electronics, and Silex Technology America. He has enabled platforms, software, and a vast ecosystem of devices using connectivity architectures across both local and wide area networks. His work with Sigfox to provide a global low power wide area network is the next step in bringing reliable low cost connectivity to devices that were previously considered unconnectable.
