Curtis Marquardt Jr.: Can you tell our readers more about your background and what you do for SERC Reliability Corporation.? Travis Moran: I began my career in law enforcement, first as an analyst with Interpol. After several years, I joined the U.S. State Department as a special agent, where I served for six-and-a-half years. I then spent 17 years at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives dealing with violent crime, terrorism, bombs and murders. Following my retirement in 2013, I joined Dominion Energy’s corporate security department. This tenure coincided with the aftermath...

The most commonly used decision-making process is conjecture-based; we use it countless times daily. We go through life making decisions based on assumptions, speculation and whimsy, with little thought to impact or outcomes. However, when it comes to security, especially substation security, our decisions have consequences. For these decisions, we need a better decision-making method. We need a reliable technique that can produce sound decisions and stand up to intense scrutiny. General Colin Powell once said: “You can’t make good decisions unless you have good information and can separate...

There’s a great quote by Confucius that says: “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” And it’s truly applicable for security professionals because no matter how much one plans, strategizes and fully commits to preventing an incident, along comes something that challenges those efforts in ways that can help an organization grow, evolve and achieve an even better security posture. On Dec. 3, 2022, Duke Energy experienced a “something” in the form of an unprecedented and sophisticated attack on a low-level substation that knocked out power to more than 40,000...