GE CMO Kicks Off Second Day
Mark Dudzinski, Chief Marketing Officer for GE Energy kicked off the second day of the Center for Science planning conference with a thoughtful and engaging presentation on energy globally and GE's efforts to advance the Smart Grid idea in the United States.
Dudzinski stressed the vitally important role of Science Centers in educating the public and developing the next generation of scientists and engineers.
He highlighted a number of projects advancing sustainable energy including Walmart the retail giant that is installing solar panels on a small number of its stores. Dudinski highlighted the complexity of local power generation because the electricity grid was never designed with this in mind.
Dudzinski compared the evolution of the power infrastructure to that of a the modern phone by making the point that Thomas Edison could visit a generation or power distribution facility today and almost all the pieces are the same as in 1910. In fact the average age of transformers in the US is over 40 years old.
Dudzinski continue by noting the costs of solar, wind and other alternative and distributed generation continues to decline, and the use will continue to expand. To support the continued growth and advancement of these alternative and environmentally friendly systems a better distribution infrastructure must be developed - the Smart Grid.
The biggest "wow" moment of the presentation was the graphic of a wind turbine with the outline of a 747 jumbo jet. Standing on its end the 747 is not as tall and about as wide as the turbine.
Links to additional Smart Grid information by GE:
Link to It's Your Smart Grid site by GE that features a flash animation explaining the Smart Grid concept.
Link to Smart Grid on GE's Ecomagination site
Mark Dudzinski's Bio
Mr. Dudzinski has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and Master of Business Administration from Harvard University. He has been with the General Electric Company for over 20 years. His GE experience includes manufacturing, engineering and P&L management. He has had assignments in business integration and negotiating international joint ventures. His primary areas of responsibility have been in marketing. This includes new product and market development, new product introduction, product management, commercial operations, communications and strategy. His experience outside of GE includes managing industrial automation P&L's for European companies. He is presently responsible for marketing at GE Energy.
GE Energy is one of the world's leading suppliers of power generation and energy delivery technologies, with revenue of over $26 billion. GE Energy works in all areas of electric generation including coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar, biogas, and other alternative fuels. GE Energy is a major supplier in T&D. It has the broad supply of offerings for the Intelligent Grid. It is also a major supplier of environmental control products and systems for asset monitoring and diagnostics.
Mr. Dudzinski is the Vice Chairman of the International Electric Research Exchange (IERE). Electric utilities use this Japan based organization to exchange research in all areas of generation, T&D and energy efficiency. He is also on the board of ACCCE (American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity).
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