DTEC Committee
Meet our committee members who are working hard behind the scenes to organise Down to Earth Conference 2026.
Daniel Snodgrass
Committee Chair
Daniel is the Electrical Engineering Team Lead within the Renewables and Interstate division for Enerven (South Australian Electrical EPC). He holds a degree in Electrical and Mechatronic engineering and has focused his career on electrical engineering disciplines related to Distribution, Transmission and Renewable Energy projects. Daniel’s current role sees him manage a team to deliver all electrical studies associated with Transmission and Renewables projects including the earthing design and testing.
Daniel has been a member of the Australian Earthing institute since 2017 and is thrilled to work with the amazing committee as the Committee Chair to deliver the 2026 Down to Earth Conference .
Sarah Montgomery
Secretary
From 2006-2021 Sarah held the position of conference manager at IDC Technologies and the Engineering Institute of Technology (EIT) arranging technical engineering events in Australia, Asia, the UK, North America, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Previous to this role, she managed a Federal Government survey fieldwork team for three years and worked in hospitality management for 10 years.
Sarah currently runs her own consulting business Beam Co. that offers her clients high level support services with a focus on Business, Events, Administration and Marketing.
Patrick Coombe
Sponsorship Coordinator
Patrick is a Principal Engineer in ElectroNet’s Electrical Safety Team, which has a core focus on power system earthing. Patrick has a passion for mentoring others, routinely delivers training on earthing, and is currently responsible for delivery of the New Zealand Electricity Engineers’ Association’s earthing courses.
Patrick is a Chartered Professional Engineer and holds a BE in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Applied Data Science from the University of Canterbury. He currently leads ElectroNet’s R&D efforts, focusing on tool development and process automation.
Nick Smith
Technical Chair
Nick brings over 20 years of experience in the power and telecommunications sectors, and over that time has held specialist roles in network design, earthing, distribution planning, consulting, and in engineering standards development. Nick currently serves as a Senior Engineer in NBNCo’s Power and Aerial Engineering team, where he oversees NBN’s EPR management standards and earthing coordination processes with utilities across the country.
Nick holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering. He is a Certified Practicing Engineer chartered in the Electrical Engineering and ITEE areas of practice, a Registered Professional Engineer of Queensland, and a Member of IEEE.
Peter Stepien
Treasurer
Peter Stepien received a B.E. degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Newcastle and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Sydney and is registered as a CPEng and RPEQ. He is a Fellow of Engineers Australia and Senior Member of the IEEE.
He is Principal Engineer at ResTech and has carried out numerous investigations of earth fault limited power systems used in mining, including electric shock incidences and the impact of VSDs, and has designed electrical protection equipment for mining.
Dr Stepien also holds the position of Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Newcastle.
James Goodger
Marketing Coordinator
James has a 15 year career in the electrical power utility industry in various leadership and technical roles and is a Principal Engineer within the Field Operations group at TasNetworks in Tasmania.
James specialises in the Asset Management of Transmission and Distribution networks, and its various technical disciplines such as testing, substation design, protection systems and Earthing. He has extensive experience in the design, testing and risk management of the complex scenarios that emerge in public facing utility infrastructure.
Uzair Khan
Committee Member & Marketing Support
Uzair Khan is a Chartered Engineer and consultant at Power Control Engineers (PCE) Pty Ltd, with expertise spanning electrical and mechanical engineering, mechatronics, electrochemistry, earthing and functional safety.
Uzair moved to Australia in 2015 to pursue a PhD in Electrical Engineering at the University of Newcastle, graduating in 2019. His multidisciplinary career spans both academia and industry, giving him a comprehensive understanding of both sectors.
Andrew Russack
Committee Member
Andrew Russack is a professional engineering manager with over 30 years’ experience across the electricity supply and rail industries.
His career features over 20 years in the SA electricity industry and the role of Head of Electrical Engineering for Metro Trains Melbourne. Since 2019, Andrew has been in engineering consultancy and has been part of a number of high profile rail projects across Australasia.
Andrew is a past President of Professionals Australia and is a former Board Chair of Member Advantage. He is a Chartered Professional Engineer and holds a Bachelor of Electrical & Electronic Engineering from the University of Adelaide.
Bill Carman
Committee Member
Bill worked for 37 years within the power utility Ausgrid, closely involved in earthing system design and testing, safety analysis, policy and standards development, R&D, and training. He is active in Australian and international standards and industry committees, providing a leadership role in the development of new national standards.
Bill has a doctorate in the area of earthing system risk quantification and design and has authored over 50 technical papers. Since 2014 he has operated as an independent specialist engineer consulting to utilities and industry regarding the management of earthing and lightning related risk.
Ray Brown
Committee Member
Ray Brown is an electrical power engineer and runs his own consultancy firm based in Sydney, Australia. He started his career in the power industry more than 40 years ago and has extensive experience with distribution systems and integration of distributed energy resources (DER).
He has worked across a range of organisations in the utility, consultant, government agency and private sectors. Ray is a co-editor of the forthcoming CIGRE Green Book Distributed Energy Resources in Active Distribution Networks. He is a Distinguished Member of CIGRE and a Senior Member of the IEEE.
Call for Abstracts
We are calling for seasoned speakers and first time presenters to submit their Abstracts by 5 September 2025.