SPARK Annual Meeting

Participate in a hands-on solar lantern build to support Engineering Brightness and Light Up Navajo initiatives serving residents of Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) communities experiencing energy poverty. Attendees will help assemble solar-powered lanterns while learning about the ongoing effort to bring reliable electricity and light to families living without power across the Navajo Nation.

Join fellow attendees in creating colorful, uplifting artwork that will be donated to hospitals and healthcare facilities around the world. These collaborative paintings help create more welcoming and comforting environments for patients, families, and caregivers while demonstrating the healing power of creativity, compassion, and human connection.

Make a direct impact in the Milwaukee community by participating in a hands-on volunteer experience benefiting local students and educators. Attendees will work alongside community partners to support educational enrichment, create meaningful connections, and help foster opportunities that contribute to student success and well-being.

Join fellow attendees for a lively networking reception featuring appetizers, conversation, and connections that will continue throughout the event.

Begin the day with energy, reflection, and connection during a guided walk or run along Milwaukee's scenic waterfront. This informal experience provides an opportunity to build relationships, exchange ideas, and prepare for a day of learning with fellow utility leaders.

Join us as we set the stage for three days of learning, discussion, and collaboration focused on the forces shaping our hyper-connected futures, answering the icebreaker question: “What must utilities stop doing before 2035?”

Hear from U2030's 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Janisse Quiñones, as she reflects on leadership, resilience, and the extraordinary journey of rebuilding Puerto Rico's electric system.

Building on the leadership lessons shared by Janisse Quiñones, participants will tackle one of the utility industry's fastest growing strategic challenges. Through the highly interactive Learning Experience Design (LXD) activity, teams will navigate the competing demands of AI driven energy growth, data center expansion, grid modernization, affordability, and customer expectations—making difficult decisions in which every choice entails trade-offs.

Janisse Quiñones showed us what it takes to rebuild critical infrastructure. The Data Center Challenge revealed the grid’s growing demands. Now, Dr. Lawrence E. Jones invites us to explore how AI, ethics, resilience, and human intelligence must work together to shape the future of utility leadership.

Engage in a reverse mentoring experience that turns traditional learning upside down. Newer entrants to the workforce will be matched with seasoned leaders to share perspectives on trust, service, communication, leadership, sustainability, and the future of work.

No lengthy presentations. No corporate talking points. Just bold ideas about the future. In this rapid-fire UNFILTERED session, four speakers have four minutes and one slide to share a trend they believe leaders are underestimating, a prediction about what comes next, and one action utilities should take now. A lively audience Q&A follows, giving attendees the opportunity to challenge assumptions, explore implications, and separate hype from reality.

The ideas shared during Future Flash are only the beginning. Now it's time to have the conversations utility leaders sometimes avoid at roundtables hosted by various industry experts.

Having surfaced the industry's toughest questions, hear how executive leaders would respond. Members of U2030's Executive Leadership Council share the advice they would give utility organizations preparing for what comes next.

Crisis Kitchen puts teams inside a high-pressure utility crisis filled with outages, customer outrage, political pressure, limited resources, and unexpected twists. Inspired by the energy of a televised cooking competition, teams must make tough decisions, manage escalating challenges, and create their own Recipe for Restoring Trust. Only one team will earn the audience’s trust, impress the judges, and be crowned the Crisis Kitchen Champion.

Before turning our attention to tomorrow's possibilities, we'll reflect on what Crisis Kitchen revealed about leadership under pressure. Together, we'll identify the decisions, trade-offs, behaviors, and assumptions that built—or eroded—trust, and capture the leadership lessons that will form the foundation for tomorrow's Future Utility Roadmap.

Celebrate an evening dedicated to innovation, transformation, mentorship, and leadership impact as we honor the 2026 Women Who SPARK Award recipients and recognize the accomplishments of our RADIATE graduates.

Begin Day 2 by revisiting the decisions, tradeoffs, and leadership behaviors revealed during Crisis Kitchen. Together, we'll identify the lessons that matter most as we shift from responding to today's realities to designing the future of utility leadership.

Hear from the 2026 Women Who SPARK Award recipients as they each take the stage for four minutes, one slide, and one powerful story. Through personal reflections on leadership challenges, breakthrough moments, and hard-earned lessons, attendees will gain practical insights and inspiration from women helping shape the future of the utility industry.

Learn how RADIATE graduates translated leadership development into practical action, organizational impact, and personal growth.

Building on the lessons of Crisis Kitchen and the experiences shared this morning, executive leaders explore the capabilities, mindsets, and behaviors utilities will need to thrive in an increasingly connected future.

Step into a powerful, story-driven vision of what lies ahead - exploring how AI, rising electricity demand, and grid modernization will fundamentally reshape the utility landscape and our economy. Join J.J Jerome as he takes you on an immersive journey that challenges assumptions, sparks new thinking, and equips utility leaders with the insight needed to navigate—and shape—the future.

Every great masterpiece begins with a blank canvas. Yesterday you responded to crisis; today you'll imagine what's possible. Inspired by the creative spirit of Saint Kate, teams will transform the lessons of Crisis Kitchen into a collaborative Future Utility Canvas, illustrating how leadership, technology, customers, employees, infrastructure, and communities could evolve by 2035.

Using the Future Utility Canvases created during lunch as inspiration, participants will work alongside utility leaders, U2030 AI Digital Twins, and one another to build SPARK's first crowd-sourced Future Utility Roadmap. Together, we'll identify the leadership priorities, technologies, workforce capabilities, customer expectations, and strategic actions that will shape the decade ahead.

Over three days, we've served our communities, navigated today's realities, and imagined tomorrow's possibilities. Before leaving Milwaukee, identify the leadership commitment you will make to help build the future we've created together.

Experience one of Milwaukee's most celebrated traditions through an optional tour of the city's renowned brewery district.