26th Annual ARC Industry Forum
Energy Transition in Industry, Smart Cities, and Utilities

June 6-9, 2022 – Orlando, Florida | June 20-23, 2022 - Online

The use of energy by industrial, smart city, and infrastructure organizations is drastically changing, and digital transformation is seen as a critical path to better stewardship of this precious resource. As a result, the future is distributed, electrified, renewable, and automated. How should you think about the roles of technology and people to create a sustainable, secure, and adaptable path forward?

The past two years have significantly changed the way industrial organizations, utilities, and the public sector manage their operations for the cities and communities they serve. The onslaught of COVID accelerated many digital transformation programs, while at the same time billions of dollars have been allocated for infrastructure modernization. In the energy sector, the United States has set a goal to reach 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035.

Smart CitiesHow are the key players in the energy transition changing what they do to adapt to a rapidly modernizing world? You’ll hear unique perspective from each, including:

  • Industrial Organizations, massive consumers of energy, are faced with problems of their own, including sustainability and climate change mandates, workforce retention, and supply chain disruption. How are they using technology and software, such as energy-intensive AI, to survive and compete in digital economies?
  • Smart Cities private and public agency budgets are coming under increasing pressure, yet citizens clamor for 21st century sustainable solutions. How do city managers, campus operators, transportation officials, and others deploy new technologies and business processes to navigate through an evolving energy domain while increasing efficiencies of deployed labor and other resources? Learn how the most insightful and proactive organizations are making major strides forward.
  • Electric Utilities are faced with the dual challenges. On one hand, they resemble the industrial organization and cities they serve, needing to rapidly modernize the aging infrastructure that is the grid. At the same time, utilities are under intense customer and regulatory pressure to innovate their business models. How are they juggling these often-conflicting demands? 

 Join us at the 26th Annual ARC Industry Forum – either in person or remotely – to discover what your peers and industry leaders are doing today and what steps they are taking to prepare for the future. 

Featured Speakers

The following executives are featured speakers at the Forum.

Dustin Olson

Chief Manufacturing Officer
PureCycle Technologies

Dustin OlsonDustin leads all global manufacturing, project management, supply chain operations, and joint venture development. PureCycle’s mission to transform the world’s polypropylene recycling industry builds upon his solid leadership principles as he works to reimagine the day-to-day business environment. Dustin values collaboration and embraces diversity to create high-functioning teams and encourage better decision making. His breadth of experience creates a unique cross- functional and cross-cultural perspective to draw alignment between diverse viewpoints. Dustin spent more than 20 years developing a diverse career path across refining, olefins, specialty chemicals, and specialty polymers throughout the US, The Netherlands, and China. As a business leader in Shanghai, he was responsible for the Asia Pacific, Africa, Middle East, and India business units, and led the successful regional integration of two major companies while achieving year-over-year financial growth. Earlier in his career, he held senior leadership roles in manufacturing, commercial, and business support functions in refining, commodity chemicals, and specialty polymer business units across the world.

Whit McConnell

Chief Automation and Process Control Engineer
ExxonMobil

Whit McConnellWhit is responsible for ExxonMobil’s technology strategy for process control and automation across all business lines.  Whit joined Exxon in 1999 as a Control Systems Engineer supporting various DCS and advanced control environments.  He has held a number of leadership roles in both downstream manufacturing and research & engineering.  He helped drive standardized design and sustainment practices across the Corporation as well as technology transformations such as the introduction of server virtualization into industrial control environments.  He currently supports a number of initiatives such as Open Process Automation and the use of cognitive technologies pursuant to autonomous operations capability.  In a large corporation, collaboration is an important key to success and Whit is passionate about connecting different people and teams to focused objectives.

Michael Carroll

Vice President of Innovation
Georgia-Pacific

Michael CarrollWith dog-years of experience as an industry executive, Mike’s background includes pulp and paper with Mead and Georgia-Pacific (GP), robotics and software as Deputy Chairman and CEO of UK based Shepard Ltd., and construction and building products as co-owner of Atlanta based McTech Group, a company serving fortune 500 companies including Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot, Kroger, and others. In 2010, Mike left retirement to join GP as Vice President of Innovation, where the MBM® philosophy and Mike’s mindset of innovation were in alignment. In 2019, he was named Innovator of the Year by ASPI, the Association of Suppliers to the Paper Industry. He also received the 2020 Visionary of the Year award from Smart Industry Magazine. He is involved in numerous innovations and transformations across GP and Koch Industries, and continues to be a frequent featured keynote speaker at industrial and manufacturing events around the world. He is recognized for his knowledge and experience in leadership, innovation, organizational transformation, and intellectual honesty.

Sanjay Shringarpure

Chief Information Officer
E. & J. Gallo Winery

Sanjay ShringarpureSanjay is the Chief Information Officer at E. & J. Gallo Winery, where he leads a corporate business process excellence organization focused on architecting IT strategy to delver a competitive business advantage. In addition, he guides enterprise-wide PMO/QA and serves as a key member of the M&A opportunity and integration team. Sanjay is an executive with broad information technology experience in industries ranging from consumer product goods and the wine industry to hi-tech manufacturing, insurance, and professional services & software consulting.

Jane Arnold

Vice President, Advanced Manufacturing Technology
Stanley Black & Decker

Jane ArnoldJane is the Vice President of Advanced Manufacturing Technology where her focus is to improve digitalization in manufacturing with a special emphasis on emerging technologies. She is a graduate of Oxford University’s Business Economic Program and has a degree in Mathematics from the University of Houston. Jane has over 30 years of experience in manufacturing technology, control engineering, and operations. She joined Stanley Black & Decker in February of 2021.

Mike Tomasco

Vice President, Digital Manufacturing
Pfizer Digital

Mike TomascoMike leads Pfizer Global Supply’s (PGS) Digital Transformation. The goal of the program is to transform PGS through a business strategy driven focus on digitization applied end to end across manufacturing and supply operations. Mike has experience across strategy, marketing, finance, manufacturing, and information systems for multinational companies and has successfully led several major transformational initiatives. Prior to his current role, he was responsible for establishing and leading the execution of the PGS Business Technology Strategy focused on a 3-5 year time horizon driving new systems and change across the organization. Concurrent with this role, he was the Chief of Staff for the Vice President of PGS and Finance Business Technology. 

Phil D’Antonio

Americas IT Director
Nissan

Phil D’AntonioPhil is a Director for Nissan Americas representing Nissan Digital across several business functions including: R&D engineering, supply chain management, manufacturing, purchasing, HR, finance, total customer satisfaction, and the Office of the CIO. Having a passion for programming early on, Phil graduated with a Computer Science degree, and a couple years later found himself at Nissan “chasing” vehicles and writing software to support manufacturing. Phil has accumulated 30 years of experience and is now focused on transforming teams and processes to meet the increasing complexity and demands on IT/IS while engaging business executives to ensure IT/IS is delivering top business priorities.

List of Executive Speakers

Attendee Perspectives

It was a high honor for me to participate [at ARC's Forum] on behalf of the City of Orlando!

Charles Ramdatt
Director, Smart Cities and Special Projects
City of Orlando

At the ARC Forum, I recognized challenges I face and learned how they are being solved by many companies across multiple industries using really innovative approaches. I walked away with ideas of how I could do things tomorrow in new and better ways. As well, I also had a chance to help others work through some of their challenges that I had already faced and overcome. That two-way dialogue with my peers, especially those in other industries, was eye opening for me as a utility professional dealing with significant industry transformation.

Dwayne Bradley
Technology Development Manager, Emerging Technology Office
Duke Energy

Location

renaissance-exterior-crsm.jpgThe Forum is held at the Renaissance Orlando Hotel in Orlando, Florida.

Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
6677 Sea Harbor Drive
Orlando, Florida  32821
renaissanceseaworldorlando.com

The Renaissance is just a short shuttle or taxi ride from the most popular Orlando attractions and within easy access of Orlando airports. Hotel amenities include complimentary 24 hour fitness center use; transportation to SeaWorld Orlando, Discovery Cove, Aquatica, and Universal Studios Orlando based on shuttle schedule; and public area wireless Internet.