AABE's CEO
Paula Glover is President and CEO of the American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE), a national energy trade association. Ms. Glover leads a two thousand-member association with forty chapters nationwide. In March 2014 Ms. Glover was appointed to the National Petroleum Council by U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz. In June 2017 she was voted onto the Board of Directors for the Alliance to Save Energy.
PUF's Steve Mitnick: Paula, first, bring us up to date with what's happening at AABE and this year's 2018 conference.
Paula Glover: At AABE this year there are a lot of exciting things going on. Our focus for the year is on innovation and technology. The theme for our 2018 conference is "Bridging Gaps Through Innovation" and that theme will carry throughout the entire year at the association.
We are excited because we know that innovation and technology can bridge gaps by helping to meet the needs of customers, assisting employees in doing their jobs and making our communities better.
This year, we're also looking at our own programs a little bit differently so that we can be innovative for our members and partners.
For example, in addition to the conference, the association will be hosting a hack-a-thon with NYU Poly in the fall as a way for us to explore technological or innovative solutions to real-world energy problems.
We're bringing together our members, leaders in academia and NYU student family with members of the community to offer a different perspective as we move through the process to address problems the industry has identified.
Finally, we're also excited about our ability to meet the needs of our members around leadership and professional development. As well as how we meet the needs of our suppliers, around entrepreneur development.