Episode 140: Faces of the Industry 2026, Part 3, Rod Doornbosch and Jodi Suski

[Music] Welcome to the flux capacitor, podcast about the future of electricity. Francis here with part three of our 2026 faces of the industry. This National Electricity Month, electricity Canada is introducing you to the people who are the faces of the industry. Electricity Canada's faces of the industry award highlights the work of six industry professionals who have demonstrated leadership in every aspect of the electricity sector. We created the faces of the industry award two years ago and it came out of a simple but powerful premise. The electricity sector isn't just companies, it's also people. The great thing about faces is it's a real grassroots campaign. We had 39 nominations for the award, representing people from all parts of the electricity sector from every region. All we ask for is for the recipient to demonstrate innovation, leadership and outstanding achievement in their field. This year's award winners have been selected from across Canada and come from every part of the industry, including executive leadership, operations, engineering and construction, line work and supply chain. What they all have in common is leadership innovation and of course their work in the electricity sector. I had the privilege of talking to all of this year's faces of the industry recipients for the flux capacitor and it was once again humbling to realize the breadth of experience and talent the electricity sector possesses. I hope you'll experience this yourself as you listen to my conversations with this year's faces of the industry. On the pod today are two of those faces of the industry. First up on the podcast is. I'm Rod Darbush, I'm an enterprise architect at Fort Asalberta, primarily dealing in operational and emerging technologies. Rod, let me first start off by congratulating you on being named one of the faces of the industry for 2026. Thank you very much, it's an honor. Now, I do want to chat a little bit about what the recognition was for, why your colleagues nominated you, why your peers across the country selected you as one of the winners. But I see that we're not alone, so the other people that I've interviewed, it was just a one on one interview. But I see that you brought along a colleague, as should we say, AI Rod is along with us. And why is there an AI sitting on your tablet in this room? Yeah, so I've been nominated actually for the work I've been doing in artificial intelligence and ironically, whenever I present, I typically bring AI Rod with me. An AI Rod is that person who kind of sits on my shoulder and typically does the introductions at my webinars or any of the conference speaking I do. AI Rod was actually a little bit of a gimmick at first, but I think he's actually become more popular than me. So I like to say, I think I'm actually here receiving the reward for AI Rod, because he doesn't have any hands. But at some point here today, we'll let him chime in. What you're actually looking at today is basically a Jarvis Tony Stark-style interface that just gives a little bit of a presence and a pseudo-faced AI Rod. So you're not talking to a blank screen. Okay. And then for the geek in me, I got to ask, what is AI Rod? What is the engine that is running AI on Rod? What's the, is there an interface? So in this case, AI Rod is actually being run by OpenAI or chatGBT. And AI Rod actually knows a lot about electricity Canada. It knows a lot about the different presentations I do in artificial intelligence. Typically, it knows a lot about me, so it can introduce me when I go to speaking engagements. It also gives me a lot of insight on the audience that I'm interviewing. What are the types of things that are going to connect with them that I'm presenting on today? Right. And so lots of times, even before I talked to anybody about artificial intelligence or do these webinars, I get to know my audience. And that's a conversation back and forth between my AI Rod agent to explore their profession, the industry, their end, and the type of things that they're going to connect with. And so when I finally step on stage or I show up for these interviews, "Hey, I Rod's sitting right beside me. In case I need a drink of water or something, I can actually just pass it over to AI Rod." And I will say, he's got some questions for you too. So we'll get to that a little bit later. Okay, before we get to that, one of the questions I ask everybody who comes on the podcast is about their journey. So Rod, tell me a little bit about your, not AI Rod's journey. Let me tell you, let me ask you about your personal journey. Same joke every time when you were a kid on the playground because this is what you dreamed of doing. Well, if I was the kid on the playground, the first thing I did was actually take the playground apart. I figured out how the playground worked. And I was trying to figure out how to make the playground better. Okay. And so as a child, they didn't realize at the time I was neurodivergent. That has really helped me in my career. But I was always the kid who took every single thing apart. And I wanted to figure out how the heck does this work. And in some cases, I even put it back together again. But throughout my life, I've carried that on into my careers in enterprise architect. And even with artificial intelligence, I've spent a really, really long time taking everything apart. So that I can actually have practical conversations with people and say, okay. You know, in layman's terms, this is really what's happening. This is really how it works. And trying to demystify technology for the general public. Right. So maybe talk a little bit about what this has meant for Fortis Alberta and the work that you do there. You've been taking things apart. You've been putting them back together from an intellectual and an IT architecture standpoint. What does it meant to the company? I think we're still early days. And it not only early days at Fortis Alberta, I think we're early days in this industry. And so there's a lot of hype around the pace this thing is moving at. For myself, we've taken a really cautious approach to this. We're starting to lay the foundation for what artificial intelligence will look like in the future. Most of what we're doing today is around education. It's really hard for people to imagine what this might do for them or can do for them. Well, they don't even understand what it is. And so we've started with education. We've started with building out some of the foundational components that will become the future of artificial intelligence. But I fully imagine that the AI enablements of all utilities and a lot of companies in general, it's going to take five, 10 plus years. So this is not something we're going to do immediately. We're going to have to reimagine all of our data, all of our infrastructure. And we're going to have to start thinking about what we want to do with it in the future. But it's really early stages today. Yeah. I guess, again, that's part of the conversation around what do potential use cases look like? And where do we go with this? Because I made the comment that somebody else's podcast a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about technology and AI. And the future, there was specifically talking about the future of trades. And my comment at the time was, AI doesn't swing a hammer. So the trades may not have the same kind of impact. But we're going to see a pretty significant change overall in terms of the work that's done that isn't just simply swinging hammers and string and wires. So like a lot is already changing today. How much more is the business going to change as a result of these kinds of tools? I almost like to reverse the question, which is everybody's so focused on. Of course, because you take things apart and put them back together. Absolutely. So we're going to take that question apart. We're going to put it back together a little different. But initially, when I approached this too, it was always about, man, what can we do with AI? Go find use cases, go find stuff. And then it really dawned on me, even when you talk about the trades. And you know, well, you can't swing a hammer. I agree. But I call it the Amazon effect. And if you look at what Amazon has done to customer expectations in commerce or e-commerce, it's dramatically changed the way we approach things. And so what I like to get businesses or utilities to explore is start thinking. Let's say AI really takes off for individuals at home on their phones and people engage with it more often. What are the expectations of the customer's going to be toward your business? And if you start thinking, well, what are the early use cases for this? I envision that customers' expectations of us are actually going to go. up. And so I'm going to want more real-time information about the load I'm using. I'm going to want more real-time information about the construction project. I'm going to want to be able to interact with an agent to get information about all kinds of different things. Oh, and by the way, I need to file a new permit or a new construction thing, and I'm not filling out any paperwork. This should be a quick little conversation I have with an AI agent or something along those lines. But if you start to imagine, everybody wants to put AI on top of the processes and procedures and the way we work today, but you have to remember that's going to change. And so the customer expectation is going to change. We're going to have to adapt accordingly. And our way of adapting in some cases is going to be the utilization of artificial intelligence. Okay. All right. So why don't we talk about AI rod then? Because it's been sitting here on your tablet looking odd and strange. Where do we go to next? Well, really. I mean, we're sitting here with AI rod. And AI rod, we're being interviewed by Francis Bradley today. And I'm really wondering, well, like what questions do you have for Francis Bradley on his podcast? After all, I'm just a virtual assistant. So no pressure. Hey, AI rod. What's one thing you? AI rod. Sorry. Can you start over? We're sitting here with Francis Bradley on his podcast today. And we're both actually wondering. We're looking at this crazy interface. But what questions do you have for Francis Bradley? All right, Francis. If I could flip the mic, I'd ask. After so many sector leaders on your podcast, what's one theme that even rod who brought me along should better appreciate about how Canada's electricity futures unfolding? Don't worry. I won't tell them if it stinks. Wow. That's actually a really good question, surprisingly. So I think that the one thing that I think comes pretty clear is the absolute imperative to understand customer expectations. And the fact that those customer expectations are changing. And then particularly, it just based upon what Rod said a couple of minutes ago, they're going to continue to change and probably change fairly rapidly because of the adoption of things like AI. But like the whole theme of first and foremost understanding the customer, understanding and now anticipating what their changing expectations are going to be, I think, is something that has been consistent across 134 podcasts so far. That's solid insight. I suppose that Rod and I have to keep our AI antics aligned with actual customer expectations. Though don't tell them I need a firmware or update to anticipate those changes more quickly. Okay, I won't tell them. You got any other questions? I've got a few, but I'll save them for when you call me in. Just know that if you were Francis, one of them, I'll hold off until you tag me in when you're ready for the next AI twist or just another question. Loved to Francis. Just say a word. AI Rod, go ahead and start lobbying questions at Francis. All right, Francis, you've had 130 plus guests. You had to pick one guest who made you think I wish I had AI Rod for that interview. Who would it be? And more importantly, was Rod jealous? Oh, well, I mean, the one guest where I would have wanted a rod, AI Rod with me was this one. And so, you know, we nailed it because I certainly wouldn't want to interview Rod without AI Rod beside him. Well, I'm glad to be here for Moral's Accord. For I get too serious, I'll remind him that AI's created first drafts. Final judgments still belongs to humans. AI Rod, any other questions? Just one more, Francis. Since you've asked so many leaders what teaps them optimistic, how got asked, does having AI Rod in an interview make you more optimistic or just more curious? I think more curious. I'm not sure about whether it makes me optimistic. It doesn't make me more pessimistic. But I'm not sure if it makes me more optimistic. But it is certainly curious to understand what the potential applications are. We were talking about, you know, what are use cases. You know, I mean, I can certainly anticipate some use cases for AI in terms of doing preparations for podcasts and doing background research, the kind of thing Rod that you do when you're preparing for a speech. I could certainly see some applications in that space. But yeah, it remains to be seen whether at the end of the day, I would be more optimistic as a result of that, in terms of the application of the technology. But AI Rod, I have a question for you if I may. Francis, I'm at your service. What's on your mind? I'll try not to invent any AI optimism algorithms on the fly. All right. So AI Rod, explain to me and to maybe the nerds in the audience how you work. What is your back office basically? What's your operating system? What, you know, what is your interface look like? And if somebody was wanting to look at putting together an AI rod of their own, but maybe make it an AI Francis, how would they go about that? I'd love to say I'm powered by maple syrup, but in reality, I'm a large language model. Basically a pattern recognizing machine trained on a vast amount of text data. My back office is a big cloud of servers. My operating system is neither Windows nor Mac, just layers of neural networks. As for AI Francis, well, you need a lot of training data. But if you want your own AI sidekick, it starts with responsible design, clear goals, and of course a bit of Canadian politeness. So it's a large language model. That isn't really intelligent. It's just a whole bunch of data. Exactly. I'm not conscious or clutter. I'm just really good at predicting what words come next based on patterns. I don't know the weather, but I can guess you'll talk about it. Awesome. So think of me as a supercharge predictive system. That's great. Glad you think so. Yeah. So AI rod keeps around. AI rod. We're kind of finishing up a week here in Ottawa. We're talking about the faces of the industry with electricity Canada. And really, you know, some of the focuses on new leaders or people might be exploring what does it look like to have a career in this electrical industry? And so very quickly, can you give maybe a couple insights to new leaders that are, or maybe even new graduates that are thinking about coming into this sector? Keep it short. If you're new to this sector, focus on mastering the fundamentals, how the grid works, why reliability matters, and stay curious. The tools will change, but good judgment doesn't. Plus you'll get to work in an industry where trust in public service are part of job description. All right. Well, thank you for that AI rod. And to human rod, I want to once again congratulate you for essentially being nominated by members of the team and for being selected by your Pearson across the country to be one of the faces of the industry for 2026. Congratulations, Ron. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. It was a lot of fun. The next guest on the podcast is my name is Jody Saskey, District Operating Supervisor for SAS Power. Let me start off by congratulating you on being selected as one of the faces of the industry 2026. Thank you. So maybe for the listener, because we're going to talk about some of the work that you've done in your area and in your region, try and place this on a map for somebody. I went and looked it up and saw that it's like cheek by jowl with Flint, Flan, Manitoba, but describe maybe the district and the area within which you work. We're a border town with Flint, Flan, Manitoba. Yeah. It's the easiest way to explain it. Yeah. The district in Creighton, from one end to the other, we could drive about three and a half hours from one end to the other. That's a vast northern communities. Yeah. And that's pretty much the area that we cover. There's only three of us up there where isolated. And the challenges are not insignificant for the vast majority of people are customers of utilities in urban areas. There are some very specific challenges that you've got up in that area. Maybe talk a little bit about some of the challenges, particularly wildfire seasons, recently. What that's been for you and for your colleagues from a challenge standpoint. From last year, the wildfire season was one of the worst ones ever. We lost half of the Nair Beach village. It started off actually up in Pelican Errols. We lost a bunch of infrastructure up in Pelican Errols. So we had crews up there. And when the fire went through the Nair Beach, half the community was gone. So then after that, the biggest thing was getting manpower is only three of us up there. Getting manpower, material, and pretty much build a whole community again. Yeah. Getting back on the grid. Right. Right. And so what did that rebuild? look like, how challenging was it to get the equipment up there and then how long did it take to do the rebuild? Well the leaders are pretty good with listening for what we what we had to say with the boots on the ground. Okay. What what we needed for manpower equipment and just to get into the different areas is the bigger if you need track machines and a lot of the stuff is rock sets rather than earth sets so everything takes a little longer yeah up there I find yeah yeah which would would make sense yeah and what kind of what kind of additional you mentioned boots on the ground because three pairs of boots isn't gonna do it right? No correct. I'm thinking I believe we had some like it was about 15 people up there different crews from Saskatoon, Tisdale area, Prince Albert, so they have crews from all over there's people putting their hands up to come help help rebuild. Yeah and how did those would those teams look like you know how did how do you how do you kind of go from sort of a team of team of three to a team of a dozen and a half you know how do you lead how do you coordinate you know what what does that look like for for somebody who's kind of unfamiliar with these sorts operations? Well with the work we had in front of us at hand there's a couple a couple forms of the crews that we first went out and we did a visit of what we had to do we had our goals set what we had to get on the critical infrastructure back on stuff like that so there's three or four of us we went around we we made a plan and after that everybody just branched out and did their thing right and everything worked out pretty amazing yeah so how extensive was that time it's like how many I don't know how many structures or how many customers or just it must have been it must have been you know for structure wise there is I believe there's about 500 assets 500 30 some of my assets Albert toly destroyer or needed repaired right so pretty much for all of the near beach we rebuilt half of the half of the community wow okay okay well hey one of the things I ask people who come on the podcast Jodie is about their about their journey and I always make the joke like Jodie when you were a kid on the playground is this what you dreamed of doing actually yes it was it was every now and then somebody tells me yeah this is what I wanted to do so tell me about that when you were a kid why did why was this something that you wanted to do my dad worked for Sasspower also okay so the second generation second generation okay yeah and he actually worked in the north in Creighton for north south electric before it came Sasspower or the southbound or the north and even when I was young I was going on right along with them whenever you got called out I'd always want to go out and do it so did you grow up to basically grow up then a little more or part of the time up and up in Creighton I was born and raised born and up in Creighton yeah okay yeah okay now remember about I don't know if I was maybe 10 12 years old I'd go take his gear out of the truck and just by myself I go start climbing mid-hour okay 10 years old yeah and here we are how old are you the first time you did a ride along oh I might well would have been right about that same age I guess okay yeah and so he probably would have been this would have been the same sort of thing he was probably you know like a just handful of people who was a crew of two or three back then as well yeah correct there is there's always three people there okay over the time okay so when you were a kid one of those three was your dad and now to you yes wow yeah I got to ask the question you got kids I have kids and and yeah they didn't play with your gear yeah and try your gear on when they're 10 years old well not 10 but my son I had him a couple summer jobs oh wow in in the trade okay but then it just just wasn't for him yeah yeah and my daughter actually my younger is younger than him okay she started climbing she wanted to do the same thing oh wow so then she ended up going to boot camp but she didn't make it past assessment for boot camp okay and another thing she was she scared to lightning oh okay yeah so I said you know what maybe this isn't the right thing to do being out at night and lots of lightning oh I'm issued yeah so now she's in the nursing okay yeah all right and if I can jump back for another generation yeah my nephew is also working in Crayton okay I got two other nephews that are power lineman also okay so it's it's in the blood it's in the blood it's in that region it's yeah so sask power in that region's kind of family business yes well that's that's cool that's cool do and do the folks actually kind of recognize that today do they do they kind of look at you and say you know he's the guy from the family that's that's sask power in this in this region yes for sure I would guess yeah yeah a lot of the locals in the northern reserves oh your Merz boy okay oh yeah oh yeah it's a long time a lot of history up there yeah yeah I'll bet so let me kind of come back to you know the the the challenge certainly of you know the wildfires and the wildfire season what you probably reach a point where you're kind of transitioning right from from you know from the you know the wildfire and the damage from the wildfire to doing the rebuild right and is is that a I'm just trying to understand is is that like kind of kind of a change in what it is that you focus on and what you're thinking when you know for for a time you're figuring out how to you know how to just keep stuff together as the fires burning and then you kind of go into okay now we got to go into rebuild mode and is that a transition or is it like you know constantly thinking about both at the same time yeah I can see that the transition like at the start we're working hand-in-hand with the emergency response yeah we were going we're going around with them making sure all electrical hazards were managed oh sure yeah yeah yeah yeah right and even at times we had our own snuffer truck and water truck okay so we're protecting our own values okay are for our assets yeah so until then we're doing pretty good but then when the fire came through the inner beach and it was more of a massive massive damage okay you could say and then that's when the transition came okay now we have to start thinking about rebuilding right gotta get the community back up yes yeah was it was was the community evacuated before or did the fire hit too quick yeah I know that they were all evacuated but we can have before that okay okay so at least you didn't have to worry about that part yes yeah yeah and then how good is the I imagine it would be very good but it's interesting the relationship with the with the first responders well with us and then we were first hand I know that every meeting in the morning yeah for just to see what the crews are different what they're doing for the different times and stuff and where they're going to be where the helicopters are going to be yeah if there's going to be any water bombers needed okay for that area yeah and then figuring out with if there's assets that they need to be aware of when they're when they're doing like the water bombers and those sorts of things yes your part and parcel of all of that I would imagine yeah correct and that's one thing to you have to sort of predict them on where the fire is going yeah and what they have to try to save yeah so if we need air tanker support on a certain certain substation or along a certain line we'd get them to redirect it over there okay how much would the that have changed from say your father's day before before we had access to you know the kind of technology that we have you know the computer mapping and those sorts of things I imagine you know a generation ago it was a lot of just like paper maps and and drawings and such do you do you have more advanced sort of IT tools in this space or you know are you still relying really on some of you know some of the old analog methods yeah things came up along ways yeah with the new mapping and stuff our leaders in Prince Albert Saskatoon they can see everything and they have a good idea of the damage assessment okay even before we relay them right that message right okay so it came along ways so they're getting a they've got a more real-time situation awareness I guess yes correct okay yeah cool all right hey you know before we wrap biggest lesson from from that you've kind of learned through these experiences what's the biggest lesson learned that you're taking away from all of this I think the biggest thing is listen to the guys with the boots on the ground right I think that's my biggest okay biggest thing great advice great advice from a guy who has his boots on the ground too yeah so Jody once again let me congratulate you on being selected by your peers across the country to be one of the 2026 faces of the industry congratulations thank you for those that have been with the podcast since the beginning and those that have joined along the way thanks for listening please take the time to rate the podcast on whatever platform you use to listen and let me know what you think of the flux capacitor you can find me on Instagram as the Brad Bradley on LinkedIn and through our website at electricity dot CA. The website for this pod is the flux capacitor dot CA and it includes links for this episode on the show page. And let's continue the electricity conversation on our Facebook page on Instagram and at electricity dot CA. [Music]