About Us

Mike Smith

Senior Vice President

Mr. Smith is a seventeen-year veteran of the utility information services and media business. As Senior Vice President of Sierra Energy Group, he is responsible for the group’s profitability, product and solution development, client relations, staffing, partnerships and integrating and coordinating SEG’s solutions with Energy Central’s offerings. Mr. Smith is a regular contributor to Energy Central publications, including EnergyBiz magazine, EnergyBiz Insider and EnergyPulse.net. In his capacity as a member of Energy Central’s executive team, he was instrumental in the start-up of new Energy Central launches in the events market, including the Knowledge conferences for utility IT executives and a series of executive market briefings.

Immediately prior to joining Energy Central, Mr. Smith was a Principal at InfoNetrix, a market research and consulting firm he co-founded. He was involved in many of the leading information and media initiatives in the market, including developing and launching the industry’s first dedicated publication, intimate involvement in many of the industry’s leading conferences, running the industry’s leading market research firm and holding key marketing and sales management positions with several leading solution providers.

Mr. Smith is a graduate of San Jose State University was a BA in Economics and is a veteran of the U.S. Army reserve.

Warren B. Causey

Vice President

Warren B. Causey is a researcher, writer and consultant who has worked with technology and innovation for more than 30 years. A renowned and prolific speaker and writer on utility business and IT topics, Mr. Causey is the Principal-in-Charge of all Sierra Energy proprietary consulting engagements, in addition to his roles as editor and lead writer and analyst on numerous Sierra Energy publications and research initiatives.

Mr. Causey specialized in the utility industry since the early 1990s. He was involved in several major computer systems installations in the 1970s and 1980s, and was working on ARPANET, the military predecessor of the Internet when it still was a closely guarded military secret. He is a prolific author of more than 25 books, reports and hundreds of magazine articles including all of the leading utility industry publications. His full-length reports include such topics as The New Utility Model and co-authorship of IT Performance Management.

Mr. Causey worked as principle-in-charge for a variety of utility projects including IT Performance evaluation and gap analysis at Florida Power & Light, Nstar and Xcel Energy. His reports and analyses are sold to utilities around the world and are used by 84% of IOUS and Canadian provincials, 34% of municipal utilities and public power organizations, 14% of rural electric cooperatives, 25% of natural gas utilities (excluding combined service) and all major and many minor vendors, analysts and consultants. He headed research and consulting projects for a host of utilities and vendors including Scottish Power, Nortel and SPL Worldgroup.

Mr. Causey is a frequent keynote speaker at many of the major industry conferences and in demand for specific, contracted targeted advice sessions with utilities and vendors across the industry. He speaks frequently on leading-edge technology in information, distribution and business. He constantly tracks new technology including composite core transmission and distribution, business information artificial intelligence systems, new generation technologies, distributed generation and legislative/regulatory mandates.

Mr. Causey founded Warren B. Causey, Ltd. in 1996 and it became one of the most respected research, publishing, and consulting firms in the industry before merging with Energy Central in 2005. He is a decorated veteran of the first Persian Gulf War and a part-time United Methodist pastor.