CleanCapital’s Experts Only Podcast: Understanding the Texas Grid
February 23, 2021
“This is something that was largely an unforced error. Yes, it is extremely cold. Yes, that cold weather was rare. However, you can’t point to physical damage as what got us here and I think that’s a wake-up call”
— Jonathon Monken, Principal, Converge Strategies on Experts Only
CleanCapital Experts Only Episode 85: Understanding the Texas Grid with Jonathon Monken
Host Jon Powers interviewed Jonathon Monken, Principal of Converge Strategies, about the devastation taking place in Texas. Hear from an industry expert on how a polar vortex could cause this chain of disasters impacting power, water, and other major infrastructure.
Learn about the failures that took place within the grid, and most importantly, how experts are planning for this to never happen again.
About Jonathon Monken
Jonathon has deep public and private sector experience in the areas of national security, emergency preparedness, risk management, and energy resilience planning.
During the past several years he pioneered programs to build enterprise-level resilience for the utility sector through information sharing, public and private sector integration, and large-scale exercise development and execution. Previously, he served as VP for the U.S. Operations for the Electric Infrastructure Security (EIS) Council where he worked with government and industry to develop best practices and capabilities to improve the resilience of life support infrastructure systems to widespread, long-duration power outages, known as “Black Sky” events.
Jonathon earned a Bachelor of Science Degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Jonathon serves in the Army Reserves supporting the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He is a Fellow with the Truman National Security Project.
Media Contact
Adair Douglas
adouglas@convergestrategies.com
202.934.3856
“The ability to execute national defense missions is completely dependent on the availability of private infrastructure to execute and this is a very harsh reminder of why that is important”
— Jonathon Monken, Principal, Converge Strategies on Experts Only