A six-module course for the utility leaders who set direction, so they can read the data, ask the right questions, and lead the transformation rather than watch it. Taught by Connor Valentine, Ph.D. and Dr. Elizabeth Cook, with a utility voice in every module.
The Ops Center runs two analytics courses, and they are not the same course.
For the senior leaders who set direction. Analytics and AI fluency: the questions to ask, the foundations to fund, the culture to build. Six modules, taught by Connor Valentine, Ph.D. (Valentine Data Solutions) with Dr. Elizabeth Cook. Ran Fall 2025; recordings and summaries below for member utilities, and the program can run again live for your leadership team.
For the managers, process owners, and supervisors who run the work. A hands-on cohort led by Bryan Stealey, August through December 2026. If you build, supervise, or operate day to day, this is your room.
Analytics and AI are changing utility operations whether or not the people leading them feel fluent in either. This program closes that gap, not with hype, but with the practical command a leader needs to ask the right questions and make the right calls. Real stories, grounded leadership exercises, and frameworks a leader can apply immediately.
Each executive pairs with a designated delegate, so strategic alignment at the top lands as practical execution in the operation. The course ran Fall 2025 and is available now: reach out and we will bring it to your leadership team.
Each 90-minute module runs in three parts: a change-management primer that frames the leadership challenge through a real utility story, a technical-literacy segment that breaks the key concepts down without the jargon, and a live peer Q&A that is deliberately not recorded, so the conversation stays candid.
Every module after the first features a utility leader spotlight, a peer walking through what their organization tried, what worked, and what it cost to learn. Homework happens between sessions, with leaders reflecting alongside their own teams, because one must do, to learn.
Each module pairs a recorded lecture with a one-page discussion summary: what the lecture covered, what the cohort surfaced, and the questions to take back to your team. The live peer Q&A after each lecture is never recorded, so the candid half of the course still only happens in the room.
This library is for member utilities. Enter the course password, or email ecook@aeic.org and we will get you set up.
Focus on decisions, not datasets. Where analytics actually earns its keep in a utility.
Accuracy improves through application, not avoidance, and the three realms of data (historical, day-ahead, near-real-time) tell you where each use case can realistically start.
Data lakes, pipelines, and the shared language that lets IT and operations work from the same playbook.
Every use case the cohort brought, from storm crew routing to data center forecasting, rides on the same foundational infrastructure. Build it once and all capabilities rise together; build piecemeal and each effort struggles alone.
Leadership alignment, shared vocabulary, and what has to be true before the tools matter.
A well-run data environment works like a hardware store: stocked, organized, and staffed by overlapping roles. Readiness is people and governance before tools, and it starts by giving your true innovators executive cover.
Structured and unstructured data, explainable versus black-box models, and avoiding vendor lock-in.
Build the warehouse before the tools. The tool is secondary; data organization, governance, and connectivity are what let every tool, script, and dashboard work in harmony.
Scoping the pilot, measuring what matters, and letting the results teach.
Benchtop, pilot, production. Pilots are fact-collection exercises, not demonstrations, and true success is not the launch date but how fast the organization learns.
AI as a probabilistic support tool, not a replacement, and the leadership work of earning trust in it.
Data analytics mutual aid: a shared language, shared goals across peer utilities, and a scientific mindset of humbly taking nobody's word for it. The first cooperative step is a skills audit.
One utility membership opens executive education and every other committee and program to your whole organization. Bring a pen, bring your curiosity, and most importantly, bring your questions.
Reach out to enroll See membership