Kathy Nelson is the Chairwoman of the Board of Utilities Technology Council (UTC), a global trade association dedicated to serving critical infrastructure providers. Nelson has served on the UTC Board of Directors for eight years - as Chair of Rural Issues Committee, Chair of Spectrum Committee, Chair of the Public Policy Committee for three years, and Secretary/Treasurer and Vice Chair before becoming the first Chairwoman in the UTC’s 70-year history.

Nelson is a Principal Telecommunications Engineer at Great River Energy, a not-for-profit cooperative that provides wholesale electric service to 28 distribution cooperatives in Minnesota.

She has worked at Great River Energy for more than 24 years, after graduating with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from North Dakota State University. Her area of focus is in wireless systems design, specifically supervisory control and data acquisition, and land mobile radio communications. 

In 2016, Nelson received the Electric Power Research Institute Technology Transfer Award for her work related to a field area network research project.

Nelson has been a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers since 1991 and is a licensed professional engineer in Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota.