Where this committee focuses
Your crews keep the system running every day, and the procedures, tools and staffing behind that work are always under pressure.
The Operations and Maintenance Committee is the broad operating forum for distribution and transmission systems. It covers safe, reliable and efficient construction, operation and maintenance, plus emergency response, leak investigation, procedures, audit preparation and the effective use of field crews.
Who you’ll work alongside
- Distribution and transmission operations managers and superintendents
- Maintenance planners and field supervisors
- Emergency management and response coordinators
- Leak survey, investigation and grading leads
- O&M procedure (SOP) owners and audit-preparation staff
- Field workforce planning leads, and teams integrating merged or acquired systems
What you take back to work
- For you. Peer approaches to hard situations, such as validating O&M procedures.
- For your company. Inspection readiness, especially demonstrating that O&M manuals and SOPs have been validated.
The committee is where field operators test whether written procedures, emergency kits and drills hold up under inspection and real events. It hosted its program at the Operations Conference, giving operators a broad forum to share operating lessons across distribution and transmission systems.
What members worked through in 2026
- Proving procedures are followed. Members compared how they respond when inspectors ask operators to validate that processes written into O&M manuals and standard operating procedures are performed, and shared best practices for process validation.
- Emergency response readiness. Members compared emergency response go-bags: what belongs on the inventory list, how kits are distributed and how they are reviewed each year.
- Preparing for regulatory change and growth. The committee reshaped a planned regulatory-outlook session into a roundtable on how operators communicate regulatory changes internally, prepare for them and execute once updates take effect.
What came out of it: Peer exchange on inspection readiness and emergency practice, plus OpsCon sessions including a cybersecurity emergency-drills roundtable.
Where the work goes in 2027
A shared resource on procedure validation, and continued peer exchange on inspection readiness, field workforce use and AI for O&M work. Emergency preparedness continues in the new Emergency Preparedness and Response Committee.
