Business Focus Energizes CIO

Ask an Xcel Energy Inc executive what powers the company's IT strategy, and the answer is clear: VP and CIO Ray Gogel and his business-centric philosophy. In fact, it was Gogel's grasp of business that landed him the top IT job at Xcel Energy, which serves more than 3 million electricity customers and nearly 2 million natural-gas customers in 10 Western and Midwestern states. Under his leadership, Xcel Energy has created an IT-development program called Utility Innovations with multiple vendors, including IBM, Indus, Itron, Mercury, and SPL WorldGroup. After many months of work, the first results just started rolling out, including a Work Manager scheduling application that helps Xcel Energy assign field engineers to repair downed lines or put in equipment, including the recent installation of 40 new meter readers that automatically send outage and performance data back to Xcel Energy's headquarters.