About Loopback Systems
We simplify utility operations, empowering YOU to efficiently manage distributed energy resources with confidence, ensuring seamless integration, optimization, and control.
Our Team
Meet our experts driving the powerWatch solution
Seth Hallam brings 15 years of engineering experience spanning process control and communications backhaul. Prior to founding Loopback Systems, Seth led multimillion-dollar engineering projects at Cabot, growing operations tenfold by streamlining data processing from manual collection to automated systems handling millions of data points per minute.
In 2023, Seth committed fully to growing Loopback Systems and its innovative approach to utility communication, process control, and engineering consulting services that bridge the gap between sophisticated technology and practical business needs.
Our Story
Origins
Seth Hallam spent the early part of his career at Cabot Oil & Gas, where he began as a production engineer and quickly moved into the operational technology side of the business, handling telemetry, instrumentation, and the systems that made field data usable at scale. Over six years, he led the buildout of infrastructure that transformed how Cabot managed its operations, moving from manual data collection to automated systems processing millions of data points per minute. The hands-on, high-stakes work rooted in making complex systems actually function shaped the way Loopback approaches every client engagement.
From the Field to the Grid
Loopback Systems grew out of a specific, practical problem: a major utility needed to modernize how it monitored steam infrastructure across hundreds of buildings in Manhattan. The existing process was manual, slow, and carried real safety risk. Seth and his team built the hardware and communications backbone to automate it: logging meter data, detecting fault conditions, and giving utility operations staff the visibility they'd never had before.
That project proved the model. Loopback could go into a complex, legacy infrastructure environment, understand what the operators actually needed, and build something that worked at the asset level, not just on paper.
Building for the Energy Transition
When distributed solar began accelerating across the Northeast, a new version of the same problem emerged. Utilities were being asked to interconnect dozens of small renewable energy sites with none of the staffing, capital, or process infrastructure to handle the volume. Developers had no clear path to grid connection and the coordination gaps were costing time and money on both sides.
Loopback's answer was powerWatch, a managed hardware and workflow platform that gives utilities a standardized, secure way to connect distributed energy resources to their grid, and gives developers a single point of contact for the entire interconnection process. It draws directly on everything the team built in steam: the field engineering discipline, the communications infrastructure, and the conviction that operational tools should reduce burden, not add to it.
Today, Loopback operates out of Pittsburgh with a small, focused team. The hardware ships from their office and Seth is still in the field when it matters. The same principles that drove the early steam work, build it right, stay close to the problem, and make sure it actually helps the people running it, are what drive powerWatch forward.
Our Values
1. Share openly
Share information freely so team members and clients have the context needed to make informed decisions.
2. Empower our people
Encourage autonomy and initiative. Default to action while respecting commitments to colleagues and clients. No decision is a bad decision.
3. Figure it out together
Uncertainty is normal. Surface gaps early, explore options openly, and decide as a team.
4. Be fair and direct
We tell the truth because we respect each other and our clients enough to be honest. Being fair matters more than being comfortable.
5. Build partnerships, not silos
Work collaboratively with clients and vendors. Value long-term relationships over short-term gains.
6. Keep commitments
Maintain a 1:1 say-to-do ratio. Be personally accountable to colleagues and clients. Make decisions with data and reason rather than indecision or hierarchy.
7. Seek diversity
Build teams that reflect varied backgrounds, cultures, identities, and ways of thinking. An inclusive environment leads to stronger decisions and better outcomes.
8. Stable and innovative
Improve continuously but bet on technology that is mature enough to trust.
9. Do great over perfect
Perfect at the cost of great is too exhausting. Define what "great" looks like, do it, then iterate. Balance high standards with pragmatic execution.