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Techwire Industry Briefing: 10 Data Points on the California Public Utilities Commission

California Public Utilities Commission CIO Reza Yazdi was the featured speaker at the Techwire Industry Briefing on Tuesday in Sacramento. During his informative presentation, Yazdi talked about the CPUC's core mission and structure, and he described in detail the commission's current and future IT projects — and how vendors can get involved.

California Public Utilities Commission CIO Reza Yazdi was the featured speaker at the Techwire Industry Briefing on Tuesday in Sacramento. During his informative presentation, Yazdi talked about the CPUC's core mission and structure, and he described in detail the commission's current and future IT projects — and how vendors can get involved.

Here are 10 data points that got our attention. You can view Yazdi's full slide presentation here. Listen to audio of the session here.

1. Yazdi became the chief information officer of CPUC in June 2015, and he has two decades of experience working in managerial positions in California state government. He previously was with CHP, and spent 15 years working for the California Department of Public Health. He also has worked for the departments of Pesticide Regulation and Health Care Services.

2. The CPUC's core mission is to regulate privately owned electric, natural gas, telecommunications, water and transportation companies. The CPUC also regulates the safety of both publicly and privately owned transportation companies. CPUC's executive director, Tim Sullivan, who has been with the commission for 28 years, has "big plans" to make CPUC more transparent and open dialog with customers and the public so they can access CPUC services, Yazdi said.

3. Within telecommunications, Yazdi said people often think of the big ones like AT&T and Verizon, but there are many smaller ones that provide some type of communication services. They all must get licenses from CPUC and follow regulations enforced by the commission.

4. "California Lifeline" is one of the CPUC's biggest operations, Yazdi said. About $700 million is spent per year, Yazdi said, via the program to provide discounted phone service — landlines and cellphones — to low-income Californians. About 2.3 million people now receive smartphones through California Lifeline, he said. Most of CPUC's budget goes to Lifeline.

5. Yazdi said they're basically redesigning all the technology systems within the Consumer Affairs Branch, which manages programs such as California Lifeline and the California Advances Services Fund, the state initiative that provides granting funding for broadband projects in underserved and unserved communities.

6. The Safety and Enforcement Division is in charge of oversight over numerous industries, electric and natural gas, telecommunications, rail transit and some passenger carriers. Yazdi advised vendors to look at these safety areas, and look at what kind of technology solutions they could offer to minimize those risks. Yazdi presented statistics: There are approximately 10,200 rail crossings in California, 4 million electric poles, 300,000 miles of lines and 2,200 substations. One of CPUC's priorities is to better understand pole data — who owns them, how they're loaded and where they're located.

7. On the topic of technology projects at CPUC, Yazdi mentioned there are four "top priority" projects. (See the slide below.) These projects center on eFAST — an e-filing system that's replacing paper-based processes for paperwork for utilities, telecommunications companies and other entities CPUC regulates. The development of eFAST itself has started, but work has not yet begun on the three sub-projects listed here, Yazdi said. CPUC plans to release Request for Offers for those three in the next few months, Yazdi said.

cpuc-top-priority-projects.jpg


8. Yazdi said that under his leadership, CPUC, is open to "any kind of technology" as long as it provides quality service. He said they're not limited by one brand. He wants to work with all vendors that provide good solutions.

9. CPUC is working on a dozen other projects, listed here in this second slide. A few points: a) Yazdi said there are many vendor opportunities related to the Office 365 migration; b) Development of a CPUC mobile app is one of Yazdi's personal projects and he's "mobile crazy," he said, and a prototype has been built and will initially be tested on collection of pole data. He said there are other many other applications possible for mobile, he said; and c) an RFO will be coming out soon for SharePoint deployment; d) Yazdi said he has budget allocated for the disaster recovery site, and it's a priority.

cpuc-future-and-current-projects.jpg


10. CPUC is planning to consolidate about 50 websites, either in the cloud, within CalCloud, or in-house. "Somewhere," as Yazdi said. There were so many websites within the commission's purview, and they were made through old contracts, old providers and old servers. Yazdi said CPUC didn't know where some of them were. So the commission rebuilt its inventory through Web searches.

Matt Williams was Managing Editor of Techwire from June 2014 through May 2017.