Dustin Tessier is the Managing Director for Tesco Group of companies, which is a turn-key substation provider that specializes in the engineering, construction and commissioning of protection, control and automation systems within the power system sector; with a focus on IEC 61850 based systems.

Dustin was an early advocate for IEC 61850 during his days with a Canadian Utility, and eventually migrated to Siemens where he was involved in Australia’s first IEC 61850 substation applications.  Dustin has since moved back to Canada to assist in his family-based company, and has been involved with IEC 61850 on a global perspective since, including leadership roles and participation in the following standards activities:

• The Canadian Chair of the IEC Technical Committee 57, which is responsible for preparing international standards for power systems control equipment and systems including substation and distribution automation EMS, DMS, tele-protection, and associated information exchange for real-time and non-real-time information, used in the planning, operation and maintenance of power utility systems.
• Canadian Chair of the IEC Smart Energy Systems Committee responsible for harmonizing the IEC standards that compose the global Smart Grid Roadmap.
• Founder of the IEC 61850 University.com, which is an on-line platform used to offer 61850 training, testing and consulting services.
• Founder of IEC 61850 Process Bus User Task Force, which is composed of over 30 members from 19 utilities across 7 countries.
• Technical expert within the IEC 61850 Working Group, which is responsible for developing standards for the power utility automation domain.
• Task Force Leader for the IEC 61850 HMI Task Force and recipient of the Canadian Innovative Initiative Pilot Project
• Technical expert within Technical Committee 38, Working Group 37, which is responsible for developing standards for NCITs and stand-alone merging units.
• A member of the UCA International IEC 61850 Testing Committee.
• This participation has led Dustin to being awarded the 2015 Canadian IEC Young Professional of the Year.

For more details on Dustin’s experience and qualifications please see his resume.

Grant Gilchrist, P. Eng., is a Systems Engineer specializing in grid modernization for Tesco Electric Ltd.  He is a member of several utility data communications standards groups including the IEC working groups for SCADA, substation automation, protocol security, and interoperability.  He is a founding member of the Technical Committee for the Distributed Network Protocol (DNP3) and served as the committee’s secretary for seven years .  He has helped several major utilities develop technical requirements for their Advanced Metering Infrastructures (AMI) and other grid modernization programs. He was editor of the IEC 62351-5 standard for security of the IEC 60870-5 and DNP3 protocols, and the IEEE Power and Energy Society award-winning IEEE 1815.1 standard for gateways between IEC 61850 and DNP3.  Talk to him about the application of use case methodology to the power industry and why it works better than just brainstorming ideas.

He specializes in visualizations of the Smart Grid and developed the NIST Smart Grid Framework “cloud” and Reference Model diagrams.

Before joining the power industry, Grant spent a total of 17 years developing embedded data communications software for GE Energy and Nortel Networks.  He has a Bachelor of Applied Science in Systems Engineering from the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, and is a registered Professional Engineer in Canada.

Greg has over 20 years experience working as a IEC 61850 Testing Technologist and Strategic Advisor to SCE on their substation architectures. Greg is a technical expert on SCE’s PLC implementation, and has gained substantial experience completing the functional acceptance testing using the Doble and Omicron test sets. Greg has been instrumental in supporting SCE’s Substation Automation Laboratory and has been involved in the testing and evaluation of station bus and process bus solutions.

Braden Olson is a Principal Protection and Automation engineer who has more than 15 years of hands-on electric utility experience. Before joining Tesco, he worked as a Senior Engineering consultant for GE, providing protection and automation consulting engineering services for transmission, distribution and generation customers. He acted as lead consultant and key account manager for major utility customers in the Western United States and specialized in digital substation projects.

Before becoming a consultant, Braden worked at two different utilities. He worked for almost 7 years at Southern California Edison (SCE), in Advanced Technology, where he was responsible for research and development of new substation protection and automation technology. This included developing, piloting and standardizing SCE’s next generation substation automation system based around IEC 61850. He also has extensive experience and knowledge about SCE’s protection and automation standards and design. Before SCE, Braden worked at Salt River Project (SRP) for almost 7 years, in the system protection and control engineering areas. At SRP, Braden worked on several major projects, including designing and commissioning one of the largest Remedial Action Schemes (RAS) in the western United States. Braden has extensive utility experience related to system protection, substation automation, IEC 61850, substation design and commissioning.

Braden received his Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering degree from Montana State University. He is a Professional Engineer in the state of California.

Mohammad Y. Razib, P.Eng. is a seasoned Protection & Automation Engineer with over 15 years of hands-on experience in the electric utility industry. He specializes in integrating detailed drawings, IED configurations, network communications, and thorough documentation to deliver successful, repeatable projects. With a strong background in engineering protection and control systems for mission-critical environments, including utility transmission systems and major Oil & Gas manufacturers, Mohammad believes that Standardization is essential for power system secondary systems, ensuring alignment with business objectives, operational requirements, and the health and safety of both people and the environment.

Before joining Tesco, Mohammad worked as a Senior Engineer in Substation Automation and SCADA engineering at ATCO Energy, one of Alberta’s top transmission and distribution utilities. In this role, he designed and implemented digital substation technology based on IEC 61850, with a focus on both station and process bus systems. His responsibilities included conducting feasibility analyses, selecting vendors for critical components such as IEDs, merging units, networking devices, PTP clocks, and MMS clients. Additionally, he created detailed design packages, configured automation and networking equipment, and successfully delivered projects for ATCO’s transmission system. Mohammad also oversaw validation testing in the lab and managed the project’s implementation through designing to commissioning.

Prior to his role at ATCO, Mohammad worked at Hitachi Energy (formerly ABB) in their Engineering Consulting Services division. One of his significant achievements was leading one of the largest IEC 61850 Station Bus projects in the world at the time, connecting over 1,000 IEDs across more than 50 substations for a multibillion-dollar Oil & Gas initiative. This project enabled 24/7 supervisory monitoring and automation of the electrical network. Additionally, he served as a Protection and Control Engineer at BBA Consultants on their Digital Power System team, providing support to clients throughout Canada.

Mohammad holds a Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Alberta, Canada, and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Islamic University of Technology, Bangladesh. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Alberta and Nova Scotia.

Mark Case is an IEC 61850 Systems Architect at Tesco Automation, bringing 45 years of experience in substation design, 28 years in substation automation, and 16 years of specialized expertise in IEC 61850 and digital substations.

Since joining Southern California Edison (SCE) in 1980, Mark has been a pioneer in Substation Engineering. He led the implementation of the department’s earliest CAD systems and developed the first-generation Substation Engineering Modelling Tool (SEMT), providing comprehensive support across the tool’s entire lifecycle, including the creation of graphics, user interfaces, user guides, data maintenance, and ongoing technical assistance.

His 16 years of deep, hands-on experience with IEC 61850, the global standard underpinning digital substation communication, interoperability, and automation, has established him as a recognized leader in the transition to fully digital substations. At Tesco Automation, Mark continues to apply this expertise to deliver advanced, standards-based automation solutions for the industry.

Bob Hampton is a Sr. IEC 61850 Software Developer at Tesco Automation, bringing 47 years of hands-on experience spanning the full evolution of IEC 61850 software development.

Bob’s career began in the foundational era of programming, writing in assembly language, Fortran, and COBOL, and has since grown to encompass a broad portfolio of languages including C, C#, Forth, Java, JavaScript, Lisp, and many others. This depth of experience across decades of technological change gives him a rare perspective on how software architecture and standards have matured together within the power utility space.

Since 2016, Bob has worked with Southern California Edison (SCE) on the modernization of their internal IEC 61850-based Substation Engineering Modelling Tool (SEMT). In this role, he leads the development of the System Configuration Tool, with a primary focus on implementing full support for IEC 61850’s System Configuration Language. His work ensures the tool adheres as closely as possible to IEC 61850 standards while also incorporating support for emerging specifications, including the GCL/HCL standards introduced in IEC 61850-6-2.