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Curtis Ashton spent a few years working in an electric utility power generating plant as an Engineering Technician and Electrician’s helper while getting his BSEE degree. He then moved on to a 27 year career with USWEST/Qwest/CenturyLink as a power (including batteries) and grounding SME. He now works for American Power Systems (a wholly subsidiary of East Penn – Deka Batteries) as a Training Director for DC Power Service and Safety. He is the immediate past chair of IEEE PES ESSB chair, and has had input into numerous IEEE battery standards, including being the working group chair of 5 of them and primary author of several. He served a term on IEEE RevCom, and also a term as the vice-president of IEEE PELS TC7 (Intelec). He is a past vice-chair of ANSI/ATIS-STEP, and primary author of a few of their standards documents. Mr. Ashton is the chair of the Battcon Technical committee, and has presented and published with that organization as well as many others around the world. He is also a licensed Master Electrician. In his spare non-COVID-era time he enjoys referring high school basketball and soccer, as well as using his fluency in Spanish.