 give us better energy. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech. It's the five o'clock block on a Thursday. And we have our old friend Guillermo Sabate. He joins us from Florida. Hi, Guillermo. Hi, Jay. And thank you for having me. Absolutely. Let's talk about training. Let's talk about electrical infrastructure, grids and the like. And particularly in the shadow of what's going on in Ukraine and Russia, where our friend Putin has, you know, he's unleashed a huge, may I say, Blitzkrieg into Eastern Ukraine and killing people now. But in exchange of messages today with Joe Biden, he essentially threatened nuclear war. He said, don't mess with me. I'm a powerful and nuclear country. That's not comforting. But at the same time, you know, before he gets to nuclear, he does a lot of cyber attacks. He knows how to do it. He's got, you know, he's got his whole Internet Research Agency over there, which have been, you know, spreading misinformation during elections and otherwise. And they are responsible for a lot of the misinformation that's on social media and in the election rhetoric. So it's very troublesome and he will do that. Furthermore, I want to add, Guillermo, before we get started on this, that there was a story on 60 Minutes on Sunday about electric, electronic microwaves. It's the Havana syndrome. And up till now, we weren't sure that it was actually happening to American officials, State Department, Foreign Service and the like. But now it seems clear with a number of cases, reports and examination by medical as well as Foreign Service personnel and their families that our people have been attacked with microwaves. And that's just another way you can cross borders. It's another way you can do, you know, under the hood type attacks on American personnel, American institutions. So that means that our utilities should be concerned because they are, I don't want to say vulnerable, but their position in the economy, their position in the way our society works is so important. And without them, we are in terrible shape. So we have to be very careful. We have to develop sustainability and resilience to deal with all manner of things, especially including aggressive cyber attacks. So I assume you agree, but tell me your thoughts about that. Well, it's reflecting on what happened years back when the Ukraine, when they had those two cyber attacks, right? Those were deeply studied by our industry here and by Idaho National Labs. And the Ukraine at some point even asked for our help to go over there and be able to do forensics to understand what happened to them. And they were doing a lot of things that we stopped doing more than a decade ago. And a lot of that is as a result of the NERC, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. It's that regulating body in our industry. And in there, they have a lot of standards, but some of them specifically address critical infrastructure protection. And in there has to do with cybersecurity. So there is a very resilient, robust work practices when it comes to maintaining cybersecurity for those assets, right? And along with that is it's not just strong regulations and standards, but there's also auditing in place and there's also a lot of training that goes on. So thankfully, I can say that we're a lot better positioned than, say, Ukraine was back then. Ukraine has, the Ukraine has definitely strengthened their cybersecurity tactics. And that's why you see it, they have not fallen victim to another attack in their power grid anyway. And that's because they implemented a lot of the same work practices that we've had here already. And which are still developing and improving. Now here, it's a constant never-ending battle to deal with a moving dynamic threat, right? One thing I do know is that every utility is right now at a heightened state of awareness and alert for any kind of cyber attack. We're being very careful with not just the utilities, but also all of these supporting businesses like us, for example. Very hyper aware of any kind of phishing attack. And that's usually where they get in. It's usually a phishing attack. Well, you have to be careful about that. So tell me about your support of the utilities. Was it HSI? And you have industrial skills and training and compliance. Tell me what you do and what the effort would be to make yourself hardened against cyber attacks. That's a great question actually. And we have a few examples. There are a few companies, specifically a smaller municipalities or smaller co-ops. The ones tend to be a little bit more vulnerable. Those larger utilities like the Duke Energy and the next era, they're pretty buttoned up, right? And they've done a great job of maintaining their cybersecurity and some standards. But those smaller munis and those co-ops are the ones usually need help as a contra-IP consultant. And we provide a lot of advisory services when it comes to helping them, for example, comply with a lot of those standards. Ultimately, we don't do the IT work for them. We just kind of help guide them towards that direction and then it's up to them to then go ahead and apply those IT standards and meet that compliance. So that's one example, right? Just in the IT realm. And the other one is also preparing personnel, specifically system operations personnel, the ones that operate the control rooms, just to be more aware and be better prepared to be able to identify a threat or even manage or mitigate, you know, and a type that's already been, you know, law and stress already happening. Yeah. Well, you know, it's different than it was. I mean, I remember, gee, it must be 10 years ago, but the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum took a trip to the various unions that were involved in training their members to install solar. So they had all built these solar training facilities and hired people to teach the young journeymen how to install solar. And that was interesting because, you know, we saw, I guess you would say it was the cutting edge of solar installation, but we're not talking about that now. We're talking about software. We're talking about much more sophisticated training and equipment and analyses. And my question to you is, who's available? You know, this is the time of the great resignation. This is the time of people leaving the jobs for reasons that are not exactly clear. We're in a, you know, what do you want to call it? We're in a kind of strange moment in terms of the jobs, the job market, the applicants for the jobs and so forth, and for that matter, for going to college and learning. So my question is, if I said to you, if I'm Joe Biden and I called you up one day and I said, Guillermo, I need your help. I want to train a generation of people that will harden our utilities, our energy systems all over the country. And I want to start right now. I want to finish it as soon as possible. I want to get all the recruits I can get. I want to take them to the institutions that can train them best. I want to expose them to the best teachers in the country. And I want to teach them all kinds of sophisticated software and hardware issues. What would you say? Two different approaches, right? Right now, and funny enough, my wife works for Florida International University. She's an executive director of development, right, for the foundation. And one of the things you're noticing is that there is definitely a gap in that type of like personnel in the workforce, that type of experience. The other issue is that IT professionals in the cybersecurity side, they're not even finishing school. They're getting recruited right in the middle of the program. So the need is so dire that they're offering them jobs before they even get to graduate. So that's one definite. The pipeline of graduates is not at capacity. And we really need to recruit more people to do that kind of work. And what they're paying these kids, because you know, tell me they're kids, I'm an old guy now, my 50s. But these kids don't feel bad. Don't feel bad. Wait till you get to be my age and you can feel bad. Stuff already hurts. But they are, they are, they're recruiting these kids and they're giving these amazing starting salaries, right? So they haven't gotten their undergrad degree yet, but they're putting them to work. They're even getting to the point where they're beginning some programs in high school, a vocational program in high school. It's almost like a trade, right? Like they have, they say like a line worker, for example. So that's really one place to address the cap. We have a lot of professionals, right? Information management system professionals that do go to school, get their degrees, get their certifications. You know, those usually need the major project efforts. But the ones that do a lot of the hard work is where we're sort of short on. And as far as the training opportunity there, you know, it's, it's, it's quite big. Not just for universities, but for other, for example, office like mine and then even, even community colleges can get in on that all the way down to vocational programs in high schools. Well, what kind of pay are we talking about? You know, used to be, you know, you graduated from a local high school here in Hawaii and you got a job as a lineman. And that was the kind of job you could get. It was, it was a job that was coveted. But I don't think, I don't think that really covers the bases right now. We need more, we need somebody who is really akamai about, about software hardware, the like, and who is very creative, who can wear the black hat and the white hat and all the hats and go anywhere and sit there at three o'clock in the morning and figure it out. What's it worth? What kind of pay can I get? Well, I was hearing, I was hearing for professionals with a master's degree, they're well into those six fairs, just starting salary. Well, about 125, 140, 160 and that's in Miami numbers, right? So it is an expensive place to live. Some of the undergrads are starting up and anywhere between 50s to 90. I mean, and those numbers vary, right? Depending on where they work and what their skill set is and what they're going to be doing. So funny enough, because this week I was looking at a paid apprenticeship as a line worker for my oldest stepson. And he wants to get into the electric utility on the union side and a paid internship right now is starts you off in the mid to high 50s. So you're working and that's in a local contracting company here in Florida. It's not even the utilities, a contractor for the utility. So any of these jobs in the utilities are definitely coveted and they're still a shortage. They're just being very selective on who they hire, right? But they're there, their jobs are there and the need is there. Now, the other thing is that over the past 10 years, my observation, the utility companies have merged and consolidated. Their executives are moved around more than they were before. It's very corporate and very avant garde in many ways. And so if I get a job like this, I can expect to have many options and many moves from one part of the country to another from one company to another. I mean, you've been with several electrical generating and technical companies over your career. And I expect that would happen to these fellows and girls who are getting this high pay. It's not a matter of sitting at home. Well, the bizarre thing is that now they can actually sit at home and work for any company in the country. There may be requirements that force them to be somewhere physically because of the whole cybersecurity aspect that they have to be within that six wall perimeter, which they call it. And those are some cases, but the majority of these jobs, they're mostly remote, so they can really work from anywhere. So it's interesting how times have changed and how the challenges are changing, but how we're also meeting those challenges is rather fascinating. I like a great career. Now, up to this point, we've been talking about hardening the system from cyber attack and all that, making it more efficient, more what's the word, invulnerable. But there's other things too that strike me. I mean, for example, it's the old story of you can't rely on infrastructure that's older than you are. I have to keep on building, especially when we're talking about electrical generation and distribution. So for example, it seems to me that there's a lot of opportunity, or should be, a lot of opportunity for engineering and design, where a utility company comes to me and says, look, we need to put a new facility in somewhere. We need to build out a new grid somewhere. We need to design and install some kind of distributed system, and we need you to come in here, use your skill, use your design training, design capacity, in engineering, maybe architecture, in creative ways. And that's not necessarily dealing with hardening against cyber attack. That's just building out a system. Am I right? Well, right. Building out the system is the beginning. So usually with the design part of the project, usually you have a certain number of engineers that are involved in that. But for the one or two engineers, maybe three engineers that are involved in designing that particular piece of that one asset, you're going to employ maybe 20, 30 field personnel for the duration of that project. So really the need is in the actual labor that does the work of installing all this equipment, from the construction portion of it to the commissioning, and then you have the job I used to have, which was commissioning substations and figuring out all the relay protection settings and then testing it and then putting it in service and troubleshooting and maintaining it. That's the ongoing work. So it's a whole body of people, a whole army of people that are employed to just use all this. Now, when they install these devices, these facilities, even these stations, they themselves have a cybersecurity perimeter, which has, for example, badge and credential access. So it's very regulated and highly secure from a cybersecurity and even a physical security access, especially these transmission substations. And that's really in the main in Hawaii. I remember they had the same thing going on. I mean, no, whatever. No, they do. They do. You really have to have credentials. Let me go a step further though, Guillermo. And that is, we were talking before the show began about how jobs and manufacturing and entrepreneurship is coming back, because China is outpricing itself and transportation is so expensive. And we still have a trade war, unless we forget that trade war that Donald Trump started is still going on. Those tariffs are still in place. And so there's a tension. It affects trade. It affects import, export. So you were mentioning that there are companies that are being established, entrepreneurial activities in this country. There's R&D happening. There's the design and manufacture of new devices. And when you think of energy, you maybe don't think of it right away. You think of a huge facility, but no, there's all kinds of little stuff too. High tech stuff. There's only that big little black boxes, inverters, for example. That's just one small example. And so it seems to me that there's a whole new area of study, of training, of opportunity for creative design, invention, manufacture of these high tech pieces of gear. Right. And outfits like Schreiter labs or GE, for example, they manufacture most of these hardware, usually in the US. And there were cyber security standards that looked into the whole threat of actually having chipsets that would already have malicious code or malicious access built into them. So that already was a concern, which was addressed. I mean, I'm sure there's equipment out there that got through that was bought somewhere and now it's in service somewhere. But usually that may get caught during one of the audits and it's removed. But yeah, there's definitely opportunities here, especially as a lot of better minds of mind suspect that manufacturing, and that's sort of like even from raw goods all the way down to distribution, it's going to get more likely you'll see more than happening in the US, at least in Canada and the US. The thing about, yeah, I mean, if you put these two subjects together, there's a real benefit in doing it in the US for a point of view of national security. I remember a 60 minutes show a few years ago, where this utility, I think it was in the state of Texas, ordered some circuit boards from China. They gave them specifications and everybody knew what was requested and what supposed to be manufactured and the circuit boards arrived. And there was a little piggyback thing on the circuit board. And the guy who ordered it said, wait a minute, wait a minute, why is this piggyback? We didn't order this little piggyback chip that we now see on the circuit board. And you know, the problem is they could never figure out exactly what it was supposed to do. They only knew they didn't order it. So it could have been something really tricky and dangerous. So if we manufacture that in this country, we're not likely to have that experience. Or we may have better control over that, right? And that's really what we'll ultimately look at. And then it just used to be a function of cost, right? Manufacturing overseas was just a function of cost. And now that's becoming the difference between doing it there and doing it here, becoming smaller and smaller. So it's going to come to a point that it's not going to be worth it. And so you may see more of that built here. So that's really what drives it, right? I mean, but ultimately, I mean, we saw what happened during the whole the beginnings of the pandemic just by just getting masks, or it was almost impossible, getting materials, getting all these supplies. And we saw how hard that was and none of it was made here. So a lot of companies sprung up and they began to manufacture their own stuff here, right? And quickly, you know, they met the need. But as soon as they met the need, you know, production in China picked up and then, you know, they were they were competing with China at some point and they held their own for a while. But you can't compete with that kind of scale, I guess. Well, we've got to learn to find those places in the market where we can compete. And we've got to incentivize kids. May I use that term to compete? And when I say incentivize, I think the government has the power to incentivize. It has the power to encourage kids to study a particular subject, like energy, for example, or software. It can do that with scholarships and with all kinds of incentives. And that's what it needs to do. You know, and one thing we've been discussing, and this is something that I've been bothering me for like the last decade, right? It seems that a lot of the legislators that are legislating policies on energy, whether it's renewable or not, it sometimes seems like they don't have the comprehensive knowledge of what it is that they're doing. They don't have to know the details, but they at least need to know an overall picture. So, and maybe I'm naive when I say that, but it seems sometimes that they haven't consulted with the engineers running the system, right, that to figure out how it actually works before they legislate some of these mandates, some of these laws, some of these goals, right? I think that applies. Go ahead, go ahead. No, no, and they've gotten better. They've gotten more educated and they understand how the grid works. But sometimes, you know, that's like a reaction to fail policies in most occasions, right? That's what I've seen. So I really hope that changes. Well, we certainly have that in Hawaii. I mean, you can have people who are, they've spread very thin over policy issues and they don't know the technology and they don't know how to learn the technology and yet they're responsible to implement, to design and implement policy. And so, at the very least, they have to go out and find brain trusts that will help them. They have to be able to pick up the phone and get, you know, advice in a more complex world. This is more of a challenge, but it's also more of an obligation. You can't make policy without knowing what you're doing. Absolutely. So the other thing I want to mention to you is troubleshooting. In our studio, in our broadcast experience, the most important thing is troubleshooting. What happens when something goes wrong? And in the case of energy and generating equipment to distribution equipment, you really have to be quick and you have to know what went wrong and you have to maintain and you have to repair and you have to have a stock of spare parts, whatever it is, in order to prevent, you know, a breakdown and a brownout or a black out and so forth. You have to be hardened against, you know, weather and natural disasters and we can expect more bad weather with climate change. So that's a whole different area of training, isn't it? Troubleshooting actually requires more than some of the other areas we've been talking about. Well, I did quite a bit of troubleshooting when I was a field engineer, right? You usually got called at two or three in the morning to go fix something. Stations in the dark is because some sort of critter, poor critter got up in the bus work and, you know, and you had a fault and a thing blacked out, right? So, and then a lot of times I had to go out there and figure out what happened and hopefully under an hour you're restored. Now, from a grid perspective and in a greater scale, a lot of the training that we do involves the philosophy of operating to an n minus one contingency. What that usually means, that means basically you need to be able to withstand your most severe single contingency, meaning that the worst-case scenario happens, you need to be ready to be able to write through that and operate seamlessly and be able to sustain that kind of impact. And that's how the whole grid works, right? They have a system that actually runs a contingency analysis every five minutes and what it does, it takes an entire model of the system and it takes one element out of the time, runs a power flow and then it sees what happens, okay, what gets overloaded if I take this one out and it does it to every element in their system. So it's pretty extensive computing, right, that goes on and that's from a greater scale, right, when it comes to the grid. Now, of course, coming down to the scenario, the studio, right, I mean, one of the things, if I were an engineer, I would just have like backup systems because a lot of times you may not be able to fix a problem quickly enough on the fly while you're broadcasting. So having a hot standby backup system is usually the way I would do it and that's kind of what we train a lot of as well, right, as many different philosophies and but those philosophies are things that we train on a bit in the industry and also as companies that support the industry. Yeah, and it gets more complicated as we go forward because, you know, the curve during the day, the demand curve during the day can change, it doesn't have to be the same hours every day or week and you've got to be prepared. Yeah, we do. But it is fascinating work and I could spend hours talking about this because everybody enjoys it. Well, I want you to, you know, we fashion this as, you know, training for better energy and I hope you can do a regular series of shows and breaking everything we talked about down to component parts and make it educational for these, may I say kids again, these kids who may want to study this and make big bucks and help the country remain, you know, secure. Well, I'm grateful and I certainly welcome the opportunity and again, thank you for presenting me, presenting us with that opportunity so we happily do it. Well, you know, I was going to say that what we are talking about is national. It certainly goes beyond the shores of Hawaii, it's national, but it's more than that too. It's global. I mean, for example, if I have a generating system, some of them in this country are really old and hopefully the infrastructure money will come and help those systems, you know. But if I have a system that's really old, it might have been made in Germany, you know, 50 or 60 years ago. And we want spare parts, say again. No, it's like some of your units don't run on diesel, bunkers, oil and that sort of thing. So I see that. So the question is if, you know, the the SJ67 ball bearing unit breaks, okay, where are you going to get a replacement? Well, I've seen that done with a manufacturer on site and they had a whole machine shop with some of these older power plants before they finally got the commission where they had their job was to just manufacture parts. Well, I think that's useful and, you know, some people were, yeah, well, why not? I mean, in fact, it's kind of encouraging to find that they have a shop that can do that. And why do I imagine that the people in that shop have had lots of experience in engineering in the service and the military, where they may have learned how to use that equipment. And one thing I had noticed though, and some of these power plants, right, especially those older fossil fuel power plants, they they're not like the combined cycle plants, which are more modern, right? And we'll get into more of that in other segments. But they were usually just they weren't young, young machinists that they tended to be up closer to retirement. So once once we're gone, it's you're going to be hard pressed to find somebody that's going to replace them. So that's another thing. So again, we're also sort of lacking in the traits really are as an industry and and also as an overall workforce. Really are lacking in the traits. Let's go. Strikes me that you have a whole generation. I mean, it's it may not be easy to rope them in, but a whole generation of these machinists, these engineers who understand, you know, the equipment, the materials, the design of equipment that ranges over decades and decades. And if when they retire, they're a tremendous force, right? Because yeah, well, you know, Guillermo, you can call them get pick up the phone and say, look, we're establishing a unit to train you to train them. Come on around and we'll give you an opportunity you never had before. Some of them I want to do it, but others have done really well with the 401k and pensions and they'll be like, no, I'm done. And I try to hire some of the retirees. And and I'm telling you, like more often than not that I thank you, but no, I'm going to cruise. And you know, that's, you know, they work really hard to retire and a lot of them just don't want to come back. So no, it's really, it is a matter of national security because as time goes by, the war, if you will, between cyber attack and cyber attack will grow. The equipment will get older. The demand will get more will increase and get more sophisticated. The use of electrical energy in the country will increase in every way. And it will be more and more difficult to figure out how to do it efficiently. And that that once again, this reinforces that reinforces the expectation that we need to have more investment in STEM fields, right? Science, technology, engineering and math. And it's, it's, it's we've, we are possibly falling behind, right? And so we need to get re sharp on our focus on that particular aspect of education. And I think it's really interesting that you could have a company centered anywhere or centered nowhere, you know, a distributed Zoom connection company of experts anywhere or nowhere in the country that that is trading on its expertise. And they could service utilities and companies like HSI from anywhere in the country or for that matter of the world. The United States could become the center for this worldwide. Oh yeah. And, and especially now where there's, there's the bandwidth reach is getting everywhere, right? Even in developing nations, you still get good bandwidth in most places. So, so the availability is to be able to deliver that training is there, much like you and I are doing right now, right? And even in the virtual space, I mean, eventually we'll get to the virtual space where, where it'll be a whole different world. It'll be like you're then think of it as telepresence and you're there viewing the facility like if you're there. One day we'll get there soon. Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, we have a company that has a show with us which does medicine that way. And you know, that was fits and starts for a long time, but now it's pretty much established. You can talk to a doctor anytime and the doctor can say let me see that show it to me, show it to me. The same thing, you know, with maybe the technology has to move a little more, but so he's out of generator set and somebody is looking at the generator set through his camera and saying, okay, turn that wrench a little more to the right and maybe you'll have it or put those wires together. Let me get a close up. And so you can do maintenance and you can do the repair from anywhere to anywhere. That's coming. Right. There's certain tasks that you're going to have to have hands on and boots on the ground, but when it comes to the leadership and advisement, you may not need a person there at every site. You may have one person managing different sites remotely. And just following up with the labor that's there, the skilled labor at Sir and the and the and the experts that are there, but the manager doesn't really have to be there anymore. So, so they're, you know, they, they can be, they can be deployed, you know, remotely for different places and have a greater scope without actually physically happening to be there. So that if we are talking and we are talking to young people or people, you know, who are finding their way right now in this very, you know, we want to call it difficult market, this unsettled market is what it is. What's your advice to them? Where do you start? What foot do you put out first? How do you get into this? What can you expect and why? Okay. So if they're looking at it from a cybersecurity IT perspective, right, it, it's trying to get into that early, even as early as high school, right, start, start, start working on that, start nurturing that knowledge and interest in high school. College is still a good viable or no route and option. I mean, it's, it's getting a four-year degree in information management or computer science and even specific training on cybersecurity is available. And it's there, right? Also, if on the trade side, on the trade side, there's definitely opportunities, right, for associate of science degrees, all in the same, also in the IBEW, SC Union side, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which now includes sisters too. They, you know, that, that is a definite avenue that they can also pursue because that also includes a cybersecurity aspect of it when it comes to physical security. And then ultimately, right, just something as simple as a vocational aspect, right? And, and, and that ties into the first point I made about high school. I mean, it really, there is a vocational side to all this. Of course, that all depends on their individual schools in the school district, right? So they may have to work with either a magnet program or work with the administration and their schools to see that type of program and funding is available, right? But the opportunities are there. Now, on, on a different side of this industry, there is a definite need for, for the skilled labor on like the line workers, the technicians, the electricians, the, the sub station journeymen, that all of that is, is, is there is a shortage. And, and, but right now also competition again, it's fierce because of the fact that they're, they're trying to hire the best people. And, and, and they, they often get really, really, really selective, right? What, in that whole interview process. So that's something to keep in mind. So just my advice to them was to be prepared for, for that, that sort of interview and that sort of a work up towards just getting that interview or, or that apprenticeship really for the, for the skilled labor side. Yeah. And the unions have a role to play here. You know, where when I made my, my trip with the energy policy forum 10, 15 years ago, they were really focused on the plumbing end and the electrician end of installing, you know, solar and water heaters and that, but they can go much further and they can train, train these kids to do anything and they can encourage them. They can give them classes. They can give them remote classes, you know, courses online and all that. Yeah. And you don't need a computer science degree to, to, to understand how, how some of these systems work, right? And, and so, so the opportunities are there, right? And they, a lot of them don't require a four-year degree, right? So, so that can easily be had as a, as an AS degree, associate of science or even vocational programs. So, so that's all within reach, right? And there's different tiers of employment and demands for labor all over the place when it comes to this particular industry. There are many opportunities and there's a place for everyone, you know, in that hierarchy of, of management and labor. Okay. I hope you'll drill down on, on these things one by one and get into the substance of them and, and actually do a little training on the show, so to speak. Sure. Sure. Sure. I would welcome that. Yeah. I'd be happy to. Guillermo Sabotier, HSI, who is into both training and compliance in the energy industry. I look forward to more with you and I really appreciate you coming on the show, Guillermo. Oh, thank you and I appreciate you inviting me and having me on the show. As they say, alohan. Alohan. Thank you again.