When a crisis strikes, leaders are expected to respond with speed, clarity, and confidence—often in highly charged situations where instincts can work against effective communication. In today’s fast moving media environment, successful crisis communications requires a strategic approach focused on de escalation, trust building, and keeping stakeholders informed. This fast paced session provides practical guidance for managing high stakes situations before they spiral out of control. Participants will learn how to protect credibility, calm stakeholders, and maintain control of the narrative when it matters most.

Topics include:

• Establishing and maintaining control of the message
• Using social media to inform rather than inflame
• Working effectively with reporters during a crisis
• Navigating differences across TV, print, radio, and online media
• Responding when legal guidance conflicts with communication needs
• Communicating during extreme crisis events, including mass casualty incidents
   

How you communicate directly impacts your credibility, influence, and leadership effectiveness. Whether you’re presenting to city council, briefing a utility board, speaking with customers, or sharing updates with your team, your ability to communicate clearly and confidently matters.

In this engaging, hands-on workshop, participants will learn a simple, practical framework for structuring effective presentations, along with techniques to improve confidence, clarity, and audience engagement. 
Through interactive exercises, individual work time, and live coaching, attendees will refine their own presentations and receive actionable feedback on delivery, body language, and message structure. Designed for utility professionals at all levels, this workshop equips participants with tools they can immediately apply to strengthen their communication, increase their influence, and represent their organizations more effectively.

Topics include: 

• Structuring clear, compelling presentations 
• Building confidence and managing nerves 
• Strengthening verbal and nonverbal delivery 
• Engaging audiences through storytelling 
• Preparing for high-stakes speaking situations 
• Improving visuals, pacing, and overall presentation flow 
• Practicing skills with live coaching and feedback

Data centers can be a powerful engine for economic growth, but their development can also create significant challenges for utilities and communities. Gain clarity on some misconceptions about the rapidly evolving data center landscape and what's driving increased demand across the country. Learn how to evaluate prospective projects, including ways to assess customer credibility and what utilities should ask before moving forward. Explore how public power utilities are engaging with developers as well as their governing boards and community stakeholders around new large loads and what practical strategies are helping them to navigate complex projects. Dive into how one public power utility balanced the opportunities and risks associated with data center growth, and what their experience taught them about partnership, communication, infrastructure planning, and internal decision-making.

Topics include:

• Data center market trends and anticipated effects on the electric grid
• Tools to help your utility evaluate prospective customers and projects
• Considerations for speculative load
• Engaging with community and utility stakeholders
• Practical frameworks for assessing infrastructure needs and system impacts

Honoring Our Colleagues: Excellence in Public Power Communications

Celebrate winners of the Excellence in Public Power Communications awards, including the audience choice video award.

Breaking Through: My Journey to Becoming the First Female NFL Official

Sarah Thomas is a woman of many firsts—she was the first female official to ever work a major college football game, the first woman to officiate a bowl game, and the first to officiate in a Big Ten stadium. In 2021 she became the first female to officiate a Super Bowl. Now she’s sharing essential leadership lessons from her journey to the top of a male-dominated industry and vital insights on shattering the glass ceiling in the world of professional sports that can be applied to any field or industry. As an example of what’s possible if you believe, Sarah shows audience members how to break through in their own careers, from staying focused under pressure and creating change to managing work-life balance and being the best at what you do.