The decisions utilities make today will shape the resilience of the communities they serve for decades to come. As electrification accelerates, customer expectations evolve, and extreme weather becomes more frequent, the distribution grid must do more than deliver power—it must adapt to an increasingly dynamic world.

In these opening remarks, Joe Matamoros will explore why resilience is becoming the foundation for the next generation of grid planning and investment. Building a resilient grid is not simply about preparing for the next storm. It is about designing systems that can evolve with changing demands, respond intelligently to disruption, and recover faster when outages occur. Achieving that vision will require collaboration across utilities, manufacturers, researchers, regulators, and policymakers, all working toward a common goal: delivering reliable power in an increasingly unpredictable world.