It’s the End of the Year As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

What a year it has been! We here at Utility Security magazine are proud of the year one success of this publication. After 20 years serving the utility industry with our safety publication, Incident Prevention magazine, and our fleet management publication, Utility Fleet Professional, we know from experience that a launch is no easy feat.

Our first priority has always been to make sure we are serving you, the reader, with the content you need. And going into this challenge, I really had no idea just how complex and difficult it is to fully and adequately protect utilities. The threats and risks are so vast and varied—and often, they come from bad actors outside of the organization who are trying their hardest to give you no clues as to their intentions.

As I have admitted to many, it’s also a bit terrifying to learn about these threats and vulnerabilities—and just how fragile things really can be. I can’t say I’ve always had the best nights of sleep since learning about utility security. But what has given me peace of mind is meeting so many driven, smart and dedicated utility security professionals at security events all around the nation. As they say, some heroes don’t wear capes. And I’ve met some real security superheroes in all my travels this year.

This year, I wrap up a very busy 12 months of security event travel at ISC East in New York City. We are excited to be the media sponsor for ISC East’s Critical Infrastructure luncheon where Special Agent Paul Doherty of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Walter Alvarado, Vice President of System and Transmission Operations at Consolidated Edison, will be giving an insightful presentation. There’s a great article on page 12 where the Security Industry Association’s (SIA) Ronald Hawkins details all that SIA is doing to help utility security professionals at ISC East this November in New York City.

After that event, we will be back to working hard to bring you not only insightful and informative magazine issues in 2025, but also a number of educational opportunities that we will soon be revealing more about.

We will also work hard to connect with utility security professionals like you and learn more about the ways we can better serve your needs. If you have a utility security perspective or story you’d like to share in 2025, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d love to learn more about it!