DonatDawn–aka Don Schultz* has more than thirty years of experience in the energy industry.

Most of his experience is founded on his career at the California Energy Commission (CEC) and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the latter from which he retired from full time service in 2008 at the CPUC’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA). During the Electricity Crisis in the Western States in 2000-2002, the mainstream media (MSM) started extension coverage of the electricity industry: “This” was NOT supposed to happen in the so-called economically developed world.

Don–an Information Junkie by nature and training–was somewhat stranded at the CPUC’s Sacramento Office and found it problematic to share information in a timely manner with his San Francisco-bound colleagues. A part time “on loan” arrangement during that time period with the California Office of Planning and Research (OPR) brought frequent contact with other State government employees who were providing support to the many state agencies and elected officials attempting to explain and  minimize the damage being done by Rolling Blackouts.

The MSM in California and elsewhere began extensive and frequent coverage on such heretofore arcane subjects as “de-regulation,” “restructuring,” “market-manipulation,”  in the context of the daily news stories about What’s Going On in California This Time?  (Short answer, in the mind of Citizen Schultz and others—Enron and some of their fellow Merchants of Power did it).

The 21st Century, in short, arrived just in time to provide widespread access to information about “the energy industries” and—via the internet and email–the ability to assemble and share information on a timely and regular basis. Without waiting for phone conversations, water-cooler chats, and meetings with fellow Information Junkies.

It was in this turn of the Century context that Don began the habit of collecting and sharing information about the California Experience during the Western States Electricity Crisis and its experiment with de-regulation.  This habit has endured through the first decade of the 21st Century.  The “themes” and issues arising from the US experience of recovering the restructured electricity industry have evolved to incorporate such systemic developments as climate change and the Green Economy.

The information junkie habits of collecting and sharing information have resulting in a set of “news-clip collections” on the major topics and subject areas of the energy industry.  The Don at Dawn website will be built out to include a repository of this clip collections in the form of archived collections by topic, in the Categories listings on the Don at Dawn Home Page.

*You might also know Don as Doctor Don, Downtown Don, Don Quixote, Citizen Schultz, and, most recently, Cabo Donaldo.