Curtis Ashton is the Training Director for American Power Systems and has been for the last 6 years. Prior to that he worked in the industry for 30 years for a utility, then a telecom/datacenter company, primarily as a Power Maintenance Engineer. Curtis has a B.S.E.E. Degree and is a Master or journeyman electrician in 3 states. He has authored many peer-reviewed technical papers and articles and has presented at conferences around the world. Mr. Ashton is a past chair of the IEEE PES ESSB committee responsible for 38 battery standards, and is still very active therein. He is the primary author of several of those standards as well as several ATIS/ANSI standards on grounding, electrical protection, and batteries. Curtis is also the chair of the technical committee and MC of the annual Battcon battery users conference. In his spare time, he enjoys playing grandpa, practicing his fluent Spanish with others, and refereeing high school basketball and soccer.