Elena Vasquez

Elena Vasquez has spent eighteen years in utility operations, starting as a dispatcher before moving into field management and eventually grid operations leadership. We spoke with her six months after the platform reached full production.

What did the first week after go-live feel like?

Honestly? Quiet. That was the surprise. We had braced for a flood of support tickets and radio chatter. Instead, operators started answering each other’s questions in the platform chat instead of calling across the room. The quiet was trust building.

How did you bring skeptical field crews along?

We did not mandate tablets on day one. Marcus Okonkwo’s crew in Salem volunteered as a pilot group because they were tired of the paper maps. When other crews saw Marcus close out tickets from the truck without calling dispatch, adoption followed. Peer proof beats policy every time.

What would you tell another utility considering this?

Start with one pain point your operators will feel in the first month — not a five-year roadmap slide. For us, it was the outage map. Once dispatch trusted it, everything else became easier to justify.