Every May, Public Utilities Fortnightly examines our industry's drive to diversify its workforce and spend. This year's microscope focuses on the progress at Exelon Utilities described by its CEO, at Duquesne Light described by its COO, at ITC Holdings described by its CEO, at Duke Energy described by an SVP, and by leaders at Ameren and Burns & McDonnell as well. 

But before we dial into that, we bring you a very special conversation on diversity in history. Namely, the PUF team had the honor of speaking with a former president of the National Urban League, whose great-grandmother was the sister of the totally awesome Lewis Latimer, the African American co-founder of the electricity industry. 

Just imagine how many more Lewis Latimers we might have had leading our industry in the late nineteenth century and in the twentieth if we had cared as much about diversity as Exelon, Duquesne Light, ITC Holdings, Duke Energy, Ameren, and Burns & McDonnell, among others, do in the present day.

Diversity in Utilities Workforce and Spend articles:

• Hugh Price, former National Urban League president, and Ran Yan, executive director of the Lewis Latimer House Museum
• Exelon Utilities CEO Calvin Butler
• Duquesne Light COO Kevin Walker
• ITC Holdings CEO Linda Apsey
• Duke Energy SVP Melody Birmingham
• Byron Witherspoon of Ameren
• Andy Jarvis and Ron Evans of Burns & McDonnell

PUF examines our industry's drive to diversify its workforce and spend. This section focuses on the progress at Duke Energy described by its SVP Melody Birmingham.
 

PUF: What's going on in thesupply chain system for Duke Energy in regard to supplier diversity?

Melody Birmingham: The supplier diversity area is not only important to me in my role as Chief Procurement Officer, but also to our company as well. At Duke Energy, supplier diversity is more than a program. It's a pillar of our strategy to help meet the ever-changing needs of our customers and communities.

It's an integral part of our supply chain operations. What I'm proud of is since 2015, Duke Energy has spent more than a billion dollars annually with diverse businesses. In 2020, we spent a total of $1.3 billion on both direct and indirect diverse suppliers, and $4.2 billion with local suppliers.

We continue to raise the bar and are committed to increasing our direct annual spend with our Tier 1 diverse suppliers to $1 billion. These are the suppliers that Duke Energy does business with directly.

This emphasizes our support to grow diverse suppliers and the equity of contracts awarded for larger scope and budgeted projects.

PUF: Why is it so good for Duke Energy?

Melody Birmingham: It's beyond good, it's important to our success. Supplier diversity allows us to invite diverse suppliers to bid on projects to help improve the safety, resilience, and the modernization of our expansive grid and facilities.

Our annual spend, at least over the past couple of years, has been between $12.5 to $13 billion with third-party suppliers. We want to identify more opportunities for diverse suppliers to grow and compete.

We're deliberate in how we reach out to these suppliers. We've been engaged in a number of outreach and education forums, and partner with our business units to ensure we are building a diverse supplier network that represents the diverse communities we serve.

Our diverse suppliers that are able to participate and benefit from these projects hire their own employees to better serve our customers in more creative and innovative ways, which helps the community, and the states where we operate. It's mutually beneficial, not just for us and the suppliers, but also helps entities outside of Duke Energy.

PUF: Talk about helping these companies get to that next level where they're strong and growing in your communities.

Melody Birmingham: Many of our diverse and local suppliers are relatively small compared to our prime suppliers, or what we call our alliance suppliers.

Our Supplier Diversity and Engagement team provides information forums to help these smaller and diverse suppliers. We know some diverse businesses lack the capacity to bid as prime suppliers, which means large contracts are often awarded to non-diverse suppliers. We're committed to building bridges to provide equitable opportunities for smaller, more diverse businesses to compete.

We also work to create advocates for these small and diverse suppliers. We are fortunate in that we have strong working relationships with our alliance and regional suppliers, which is necessary to ensure they are aware and pursue opportunities to subcontract with diverse suppliers. 

PUF: Talk about maximizing the use of diverse suppliers for all levels of contracts.

Melody Birmingham: We encourage small and local diverse suppliers to participate at all levels, and in all categories of spend within our company. For example, when we have major construction projects, storms, and outages, or when we need food services to support our line workers and teams.

We work with local and diverse suppliers for an array of opportunities. From smaller projects at our facilities that we manage and operate to larger contracts, like nuclear, renewables, and transmission projects to invest in and improve the resiliency of our grid.

Duke Energy is modernizing and transforming our fleet to generate cleaner energy, which will increase opportunities for diverse suppliers supporting major construction, engineering, industrial or environmental services. As we optimize our real estate portfolio, we've partnered with a local and diverse supplier to help build one of our large corporate headquarter offices in Charlotte.

PUF: You all are working hard to advance diversity — both within the company and in your communities.

Melody Birmingham: Yes, Duke is working to help advance diversity.DE&I is important to us, not only with our supplier base, but also within our company.

We have a commitment to build a diverse workforce that mirrors the communities we serve. It's an intentional effort that doesn't just apply to this moment, but it's a sustainable part of our culture and the next generation of our workforce.

We want to ensure we're creating a workforce that reflects our communities. It's one thing to have a diverse workforce. It's another to ensure all teammates feel included and there are equitable opportunities afforded to them.

We ended the year with a workforce representation of 23.4 percent females and 18.4 percent minority. That's despite a pandemic environment that caused a hiring pause, which impacted so many companies.

We have an aspirational goal to increase the percentage to 25 percent for females and 20 percent for minorities. 

Achieving these goals will require a commitment to hiring diverse talent, as well as developing and promoting talent within the company. To increase the percentage of underrepresented employee groups, specifically females and minorities in our company, we've made that a priority.

We made progress in 2020, which led to Forbes naming Duke Energy as one of "The Best Employers for Diversity" and one of America's "Best Employers for Women." I'm pleased to say that. 

We have teams dedicated to recruiting diverse talent as external hiring opportunities come up. We attend career events at historically black colleges and universities, professional societies, and community events.

We participated in thirty outreach events in 2020 with North Carolina universities, community colleges, and other trade and technical schools to help raise awareness of career opportunities in energy, construction, and other contractor fields. 

PUF: Do you hear, we'd love to have more people of color or women, but they're not out there?

Melody Birmingham: Yes. The talent is there. You have to be intentional if we want to recruit, hire and retain diverse talent. There is diverse talent to be found if you are serious about wanting to find diverse talent.

Being intentional in hiring diverse talent does not lower expectations. In fact, a diverse team raises the bar. You'll exceed your expectations when you include diverse teammates — they bring a wealth of knowledge and experience, have the right attitude, and can seamlessly transition into your culture with support.

It raises your bar as a company because you're bringing in people with different perspectives and a different lens. If you have a homogenous work group that only sees from a single perspective, you're missing the big picture, so bringing in diverse talent into your workforce can result in greater success as a company.

PUF: Do you try to have an impact on your communities and the other big businesses or chambers of commerce?

Melody Birmingham: Absolutely. Being a big utility isn't what we tout, it's lending our time, talent, and means in the communities we serve. Although we are large in size, we are connected to our communities at the grassroots level. We provide opportunities for our employees to volunteer in their local communities and have organizations within our company that partner with local and state agencies to support community efforts.

We can't do well if our communities aren't doing well. There's a symbiotic relationship. We want our communities and our states to compete and thrive.

That is important to us as a company. That isn't a requirement. It's a duty, a responsibility that we have. Our employees appreciate the opportunity to volunteer. They appreciate the work our Foundation does to support organizations and needs within our communities. They appreciate our serving on boards.

We not only give money, but we give time.

PUF: How does it feel to be named one of Diversity Women Media's Elite One Hundred Black Women Leaders?

Melody Birmingham: It's an honor to be recognized alongside the other incredible women in the Elite One Hundred and I'm inspired by them. It's a group effort when it comes to increasing opportunities for women and particularly women of color. These women are changing the game in Corporate America. 

Let me touch on my journey. I started my career in college: I went to school full-time, and I worked many jobs to help pay my way through college.

My junior and senior years, I was office manager for a temporary placement agency. My post-college career began in 1994 and over the years, I've had the opportunity to work with many types of people.

Whether it was North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, Chicago, or Indiana, I've had the benefit of working with great people and in multiple industries, specifically automotive
and energy.

Most of my career has been in operations. I've been in the field. I've found that most, if not all people, just want to be treated fairly and contribute to the success of the company and community, despite our differences.

That is the common thread. They want to know that you, as their leader, will keep them safe and hold them accountable for helping their company achieve its objectives and mission. When you hold them accountable, you're helping develop and build their skills at the same time.

I want to help inspire and support others to meet their fullest potential. That's important to me. That's what I focused on as I traveled this journey and I appreciate that it brought me to where I am today.

I'm grateful to be in a position to help shape Duke Energy's supply chain operations through a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens. And I'm extremely proud of the continued success of our supplier diversity program — and to lead a team and partner with vendors who are equally committed to advancing this critical work.

Diversity in Utilities Workforce and Spend articles:

• Hugh Price, former National Urban League president, and Ran Yan, executive director of the Lewis Latimer House Museum
• Exelon Utilities CEO Calvin Butler
• Duquesne Light COO Kevin Walker
• ITC Holdings CEO Linda Apsey
• Duke Energy SVP Melody Birmingham
• Byron Witherspoon of Ameren
• Andy Jarvis and Ron Evans of Burns & McDonnell

PUF examines our industry's drive to diversify its workforce and spend. This section focuses on the progress at Burns & McDonnell.

PUF: Why is diversity in the utilities industry, both in the workplace and in the utility spend, so important to Burns & McDonnell?

Andy Jarvis: Burns &McDonnell has been in business for a hundred and twenty-three years and one of our key drivers of success all along has been diversity. That's diversity in our business lines, our locations, our workforce, and our partnerships.

We want to add value to our utility customers through seeking ways to improve on our diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. We like to hear what they're doing with respect to efforts in diversity, equity, and inclusion.

We feel like events such as the Utility Diversity Roundtable is an opportunity for us to collaborate on ideas and seek ways to improve on the successes they've had, and we've had, and have an open and honest conversation about where we need to improve.

Constantly, we recognize the need to improve in all aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Likewise, our utility partners want to improve, and they seek the same opportunities to share best practices.

We want to support our utilities in their efforts. We support them in a lot of our services providing engineering, construction, and program management services.

I see this as one more way to add value to what they do and add value to their customers because ultimately, their customers are our customers. We want to support and be a partner in their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

It's the right thing to do for us as a company. We're an employee-owned company. We own what we do. It's important for us to embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion in all of our practices. 

PUF: Ron, you've been working on this for a few years. What's your take on why this is so important? I'd also like your perspective on how things evolved over the last four or five years.

Ron Evans: Andy touched on some key aspects of why this is so important to us with utilities. One of the main points is when we consider the community, that being the customers the utilities serve. 

We are a part of the same communities as their customers with any project we design and build. It is ultimately the community who Burns & McDonnell is serving by the projects we design and build.

That connects us in a strong way. Since we work for the utilities to design and build the infrastructure that supports the community, that is what makes us partners when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

That's why we are so invested into utilities, with what they think, how they feel, and what priority they give diversity, equity, and inclusion, but also to share with them that we have the same concern and commitment. 

As far as what has evolved, I attended the AABE Energy Summit in 2017. That was where I got an intro to what was going on in the utility space with respect to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

One of the main things I've noticed evolve is more utilities are talking about this topic. Back then, there were only a few that I knew about that were fully engaged. Now, the majority of utilities that we have a relationship with have communicated a strong focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

I also think last year was a huge inflection point that no one will forget. It was one of those periods that has driven or nudged every industry in a way, that we're going to remain committed to these efforts, to make sure we all are treating one another in the ways that we should be treated as a people, as humanity.

PUF: How did Burns & McDonnell respond to the events of last summer?

Andy Jarvis: We talked about it. Ten years ago, those discussions wouldn't have happened. It wasn't something you talked about. It wasn't a topic you brought up at work. It was, that's outside of work, and we're going to focus on work.

As we've changed as a society, and as our company has changed, we have those conversations now, and we have the freedom and a safe environment to talk and listen. That is because, as we've matured as an organization and understand the impact some of this is having on our employee owners, we need to have those platforms for discussions.

Leadership needs to understand, be sensitive, and be willing and able to have those tough conversations. Some of these conversations are difficult.

We have a new forum that is specifically in our T&D Group, it is one that Ron created. It's called Real Talk. It's a forum where we have employee-owners from all levels of the organization participate and talk about exactly what we're talking about here and share their thoughts and feelings.

I sat in on one of the talks. It was eye opening for me. It gave me a perspective that, as a leader, I have to understand the viewpoints other people have in my organization and be open and aware. I wouldn't have had that opportunity to listen, had it not been for Real Talk, had it not been for that forum or platform we've created in T&D at Burns & McDonnell. 

We have other platforms too, such as a corporate diversity advisory committee, where we have the opportunity to share thoughts, beliefs, and concerns over what's happening outside the walls of Burns & McDonnell.

PUF: How did you all think about putting this together to make it work?

Ron Evans: Andy is my boss, and his boss is COO, John Olander. Without their leadership getting behind an idea like that, it wouldn't have been possible. 

It came from having conversations with people and hearing their concerns. We had already started to have a multicultural perspectives lunch, within our T&D Group. We had been having those for about two years, from 2018 to 2020.

As I was brainstorming with people who were part of those conversations, I said, we need to start talking about this at a greater level within our organization. It's necessary because we realized that it benefits our organization, and community.

PUF: How do you develop partners and subcontractors that can work with you on these big, and crucially important projects?

Andy Jarvis: It starts with being intentional. Ron Evans is the T&D business diversity director. That's a relatively new role. We also have a firm-wide business diversity director with Michelle Word who helps in developing partnerships with diverse businesses. 

Some of the things we do with respect to our diverse suppliers and subcontractors starts with Ron educating our execution teams, project managers, and account managers on how to engage diverse suppliers and subcontractors.

We have a large database of diverse suppliers. Ron has been creating deep relationships with those diverse suppliers, as well as some other folks in our organization. It's connecting those diverse suppliers and subcontractors with our project execution. One of his key roles is helping develop processes and procedures to connect our project teams and managers with the diverse supplier and subcontractor database.

That is a difficult job. Ron does an excellent job, but he's one person. What we're trying to do is create this understanding and knowledge base across our organization of our overall diversity goals and empower our project managers and our account managers.

We do quite a bit beyond just hiring. We do things to help them succeed but also because we need them to succeed on our projects and continue to grow.

Ron Evans: Where it all starts is relationships. The aim is to make sure we are expanding our relationships with suppliers that work on our projects. It's a huge effort and it's not something I can tackle by myself, but I'm focusing on communicating that approach across our businesses.

When you talk about supplier development, that starts from a strong relationship, meaning you have to know the leadership of a business and understand their goals, where they are headed, and what markets they are trying to enter. 

Those are some of the things we talk with certain companies about. Every company is not a partner. What we try to do is build solid relationships, so we know what potential exists for a solid partnership. That's were development starts.

For example, there are a couple of companies in Chicago and another one in Maryland, which were trying to expand either their services or clientele, to services that we do or a client we work with.

For the company in Chicago, DB Sterlin, we agreed on one of their designers to sit with our group in Chicago and we worked directly with him to train him on transmission line design skills. That is a new service they do now.

That benefits DB Sterlin, of course, but it also benefits us. Because now when we do receive transmission line scopes for a client that is within the sphere of DB Sterlin's work, they also can support more strongly.

KDM Engineering is a good example. We started working with them in Chicago but because of a strong relationship we've also worked in D.C. together. Now, we're looking at Ohio.

It's not one of those situations where we're holding those companies' hands. They have the capability of standing alone if they wanted to, but through our partnership, we are helping one another grow.

PUF: Where is this going in the next two to five years?

Andy Jarvis: There's a lot more focus on this, across the utility industry and a lot of other industries. The gains we've made, just in the last few years, are going to continue. 

Is it going to happen quickly? Probably not. A lot of times these things don't happen as quickly as we would like them to happen, but you're starting to see businesses and leaders embracing the idea of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Burns & McDonnell is one. We've recently put a diversity, equity, and inclusion manager in place, a new position that works directly with our C-suite level executives, and this is a focus and priority for our company.

The challenge is to make the opportunities available for a long-term success. It's going to require education, and opportunities for diverse or underserved communities, to start the education at the elementary school level.

It's too late to try to think about it when you get to the high school and college level. We have to develop a pipeline of diverse engineers, designers, technicians, and scientists that has to start in at a young age. We have a lot of initiatives at the K through six level in STEM, in areas of diversity to help start that development.

The challenge is, up until recently, there wasn't a pipeline available of those types of candidates. Now, it's changing. We're starting to see it and it's wonderful. I'm excited about where our organization is going.

Ron Evans: I'm optimistic. Economic impact and economic justice are terms we are going to hear more about. How those ideas intersect suppliers, organizational diversity, the community, and who all that touches, STEM with K through twelve. I believe we are going to see more action with the schools, to build a pipeline.

Because this is about providing opportunities for communities who have been historically disadvantaged, to have a chance at a decent life. COVID told us something about our communities, that everybody is important. When you start talking about essential workers and looking at grocery store workers and the emergency responders it tells us a lot about areas of our community that we may not always think about.

Diversity in Utilities Workforce and Spend articles:

• Hugh Price, former National Urban League president, and Ran Yan, executive director of the Lewis Latimer House Museum
• Exelon Utilities CEO Calvin Butler
• Duquesne Light COO Kevin Walker
• ITC Holdings CEO Linda Apsey
• Duke Energy SVP Melody Birmingham
• Byron Witherspoon of Ameren
• Andy Jarvis and Ron Evans of Burns & McDonnell

Change in organizational culture begins with top-level leadership. This panel at the Burns & McDonnell Utilities Diversity Roundtable discussed the difference between utility executives taking ownership versus buying into DE&I strategy, and how it impacts the overall culture of an organization.
 

T&D Business Diversity Director, Burns & McDonnell, Laron Evans: Our projects must be built with proactive inclusion and we must continue to do better when it comes to DE&I since we touch so many cultures, and so many lives. This past crisis filled year has demonstrated how strongly humanity is connected to and needs one another.

At the same time there are deep inequities in America that these crises have also exposed. They are now at the center of attention for many corporations and industries in our country. These inequities have reinforced why the work with diversity, equity, and inclusion is so important.

COO, Burns & McDonnell, John Olander: This panel discusses the difference between utility executives taking ownership and buying into DE&I strategy and how it impacts the overall culture of the organization.

CEO, ITC Holdings Corp., Linda Apsey: How I emerged from the horrific tragedies last year was the mindset of, I'm all in this and I have to ensure that my organization knows and understands not only where I stand on this issue but where we as a company are going to stand on these issues.

The commitment from this point forward that we are making is we are proud of the foundation that was already underway, but as we think about the commitments that we've made it's in terms of our workforce and our employees. It's our workplace, environment, culture, and industry.

It's a commitment to our industry, our suppliers, and our community. In these moments of tragedies often come great moments of clarity, and for me that's what this was. It moved from becoming an initiative and a program to being that we are all in, we are committed, we are going to get through this together, and we all have to own this.

CEO, Exelon Utilities, Calvin Butler: I lead from a perspective of DE&I. I strongly am committed to and believe that a more diverse and inclusive environment leads to better results. We've added in that equity component to ensure the field is level, so it's never in conflict.

As a leader I'm very clear with where I stand. If this is a company that you want to work for and want to partner with, my tolerance level for anything but those things are non-existent. For those who work for me, I'm pretty laid back in terms of getting excited.

I feel that people are being treated a certain way or not given an opportunity because of their gender, race, color, creed, whatever, and that should not exist. I recognize that there are moments in the organization that show themselves. Then everyone's watching what I do as a leader and how I respond. Everyone's on this journey at a different pace.

But my piece is that we need to be on the journey. This is one of those situations within the Exelon walls so it can't take us too long. I'm willing to partner and work with you, but let's get there.

Let's not be in conflict, but how we go about demonstrating and living our values is what we talk about and work on each and every day. Due to that journey and that we used to have a Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion, and because of what we learned about ourselves last year, we added the equity component.

Diversity Roundtable Articles:

• Executive Ownership Versus Buy-In
• Maximizing Diverse Supplier Utilization
• Staying Connected with Community

It takes lots of planning for energy and utilities companies to maximize supplier diversity. This panel at the Burns & McDonnell Utilities Diversity Roundtable discussed the importance of a strong network of diverse suppliers for all utility operations and how it impacted business resilience in 2020.
 

Assistant Department Manager-Industrial Electrical Solutions Group, Burns & McDonnell, Brittany Bennett: We're going to discuss maximizing diverse supplier utilization, what this truly means, how to advance, and set goals. Also, talk about what's been going on during COVID, as well as within our strong network of diverse suppliers for all of our utility operations.

Director of Supplier Diversity, Ameren, Byron Witherspoon: From Ameren's perspective, we talk about the impact of COVID from a diverse business perspective. We've grown our diverse spend last year by twenty-five percent, but intentional business practice does lend itself to moving the needle.

Time will tell how this goes, because we all had to pivot so quickly with respect to technology. This was not limited to diverse companies and the smaller companies in terms of the digital divide and some amplification in the digital divide, in terms of having the scalability to have the technological resources needed to stay present.

We haven't seen it yet, but I think you're going to start seeing an amplification there with respect to how do we get companies to get in, and what sort of technological platforms will we be using? What's going to fit within our diverse suppliers, small local companies, and resources, because for us, cyber is an increasingly big concern.

When you start talking about some of our cybersecurity metrics, we have to make sure we don't unintentionally have any onerous language that may unnecessarily preclude diverse companies from engaging because of cyber issues. That's a balance that we have to walk.

SVP of Supply Chain and CPO, Duke Energy, Melody Birmingham: What tells me if our culture is evolving is when our business unit partners come to us and make sure we have diverse suppliers in that mix.

I measure how we're dealing with supplier diversity, not only using those quantitative goals, our spend percentage, the number of events we host, and the number of mentors or proteges that come out of that, but also how we evolve as a culture, where our employees, and business unit leaders are wanting to ensure that we're engaging. 

We're reaching out to diverse suppliers and have been able to evolve in that way by enlisting champions within each of our business units, so they can share in our objectives to advance supplier diversity. They come to us instead of my organization's supplier diversity having to go to them with these opportunities.

Manager of Supplier Diversity, SDG&E, Sydney Furbush: In spite of the pandemic, we had an amazing year. We did over 41.6 percent of our total spend in goods and services with diverse suppliers.

As we look at 2021, we're increasing that goal, because what we see is there are always opportunities where regardless of the challenges that we're facing, a lot of our suppliers have been able to pivot, make adjustments and take some leadership roles, as we've seen during this pandemic.

Next year, we're looking at a forty-two percent goal, in our total goods and services for our suppliers. In addition, we noticed some of our minority suppliers took a hit this past year. So, we're taking an increased focus and ensuring that specifically as an African-American sector that we do more work in trying to bring more suppliers in that space and to help identify unique opportunities so they can be successful in the area.

You talk about differences between diverse and local suppliers. There was one thing that we looked at in San Diego, and it's not just SDG&E as a utility, but all the other large corporations in San Diego County.

We noticed a lot of our small businesses struggled during this pandemic. We've taken an extra effort to help those small businesses not just get back online but help them thrive post pandemic.

Diversity Roundtable Articles:

• Executive Ownership Versus Buy-In
• Maximizing Diverse Supplier Utilization
• Staying Connected with Community

Energy and utilities companies do their best when they look like the communities they represent. This panel at the Burns & McDonnell Utilities Diversity Roundtable discussed how empathy guides servant leadership in keeping utilities connected to diverse communities.
 

Chief Administrative Officer, Burns & McDonnell, Renita Mollman: Community involvement is a big part of our culture and of course all of your cultures. It's personal, and each of us has a story to tell.

COO, Duquesne Light Co., Kevin Walker: For the utility, which is the lifeblood of the community in a lot of ways, we have an opportunity to step up in meaningful ways to change people's lives.

The utility industry is playing catch up with its customer focus. We have had the luxury of having a captive audience of being able to look out of sight out of mind, and expectations in a bit are low. 

We are playing catch up, but in our heart of hearts, we know that if we're going to stay relevant, if we're going to stay meaningful, we have to do it. I see a lot of good companies in the utility space stepping up to do that.

Our friends and family say how devastating in so many ways COVID-19 is. It's not a distant empathy that you have to have. We decided even before our Commission made it mandatory for utilities and Pennsylvania to do a moratorium on shutoffs.

That was a way that we could step up and empathize at the beginning of all this, when people were losing their jobs and having all kinds of issues, childcare, healthcare, and everything else on top of that, having civil unrest, all the uncertainty that goes along, and the suspicion.

It was not a place in time to turn the power off. We've directed our corporate giving in ways that will support our diverse communities and the most vulnerable given the economic impacts of COVID. That's been impactful.

VP, Supply Chain Management for Gas Generation and Services, Southern Company, Johnny Howze: The common fabric that weaves through everything is energy. In my community where I grew up, Alabama Power gave a unique opportunity to a lot of inner city kids to come and work there for the summer. That gave me a head start and impacted me greatly.

Customers are at the center of everything we do. We have this belief that we have to meet customers where they are. Couple that with what technology has done, and how it has just raised the game on everything. There are a multitude of ways that we have to be able to communicate. When you think about it from a technology standpoint, the customer engagement experience is important.

In terms of equity, a lot of this deals with communication that we have to continue to educate our customers and communities on, and that gets back to the relationship that we build with the customer every day.

This is a business, and there will be things that come up. There will always be things that we can do better and have to explain. If you work on the relationship with the customer before you get to these types of events and keep that customer at the center of what we do, that gives us the best chance to serve our customers in an equitable way. We really work hard at that.

We're talking about things as a part of the framework, like political engagement, with candidates who we support. They should reflect our values. The political environment is toxic these days.

We're having conversations around communities. How can we have better education, and what's our role in that? With leadership in our communities, what's our role in that? Internally we're having discussions that deal with talent and within our own culture, because there are hidden biases that exist in every organization. What processes can you impact or improve to help remove those hidden biases?

Diversity Roundtable Articles:

• Executive Ownership Versus Buy-In
• Maximizing Diverse Supplier Utilization
• Staying Connected with Community

Think different" was Apple's slogan about twenty years ago. These two catchy words signified that what was in the elegant white boxes containing Steve Jobs' products resulted from imagining outside-the-box. It was different thinking that led the PUF team to create a better way to place the important themes of last November's book, "Lewis Latimer, the First Hidden Figure," and this month's book, "Women Leading Utilities, the Pioneers and Path to Today and Tomorrow," in front of our entire industry. 

Rather than sell a copy one at a time, we're able to provide it in multiple digital formats for free, only because of the gracious support of the books' sponsors. Including in the case of "Women Leading Utilities," the consultancy Guidehouse.

Michelle Fay, a Guidehouse partner, writes this in the book's introductory pages: "As more women begin their careers or ascend to leadership roles, we must continue to work harder to close the gender gap, to give women a seat — and a voice — at the table, and to transform the old constructs of who belongs in this space. This book is a powerful reminder of why, and we're glad to be a small part of sharing these women's stories with the world." She elaborates in the following conversation with us.
 

PUF's Steve Mitnick: Your company, Guidehouse, and your team, decided to be a sponsor for Women Leading Utilities. Why did you all decide that and also write an inspiring statement in the book?

Michelle Fay: It's something we're passionate about. As an organization, we've published our CEO Blueprint. It's not something we just talk about. It's something that we live all day, every day, in everything we do — as we're thinking about everything from recruiting individuals to making sure we have future leaders coming up through the pipeline.

We've noticed it's not just us — it's also our clients becoming more aware of diversity challenges. They're taking action and we have to as well if we want to continue to keep pace. It's clearly something we're passionate about and take action on in our organization every day. As a proof point, we recently added a Chief Culture, Inclusion, and Diversity Officer to our executive leadership team at Guidehouse.

PUF: It's a good thing, but it's also seen as a valuable business decision and strategy. Why is that, at an organization like Guidehouse?

Michelle Fay: Having a diverse team brings a different perspective to the conversation. Like-minded, similar people tend to be one note. The more people you bring into the conversation from different backgrounds and experiences, the more varied perspectives you bring to the conversation. This often allows you to think about things in a way that maybe you wouldn't have previously considered.

PUF: You're a partner at Guidehouse, but there was a time when women were not as noticed. Maybe at first you were one of the few women in the room, so to speak.

Michelle Fay: Looking back,I was always one of the few women in the room. I started in this industry over twenty-five years ago, and I remember some of those first meetings I went to with clients where I was the only female on the team for both the client and from our consulting team.

When I go to a client meeting today, the females often outnumber the males. It's changed drastically in the last twenty-five years. The women in the meetings are in leadership positions, not just the ones taking notes. It's exciting to see how far we've come and the changes in the industry.

PUF: Especially a couple of decades ago, it was rare for women to be at high levels. There was the idea that men do the technical work, and women do human resources. Did you find some of that?

Michelle Fay: I am beyond fortunate to have had some fabulous mentors in my career.

They never saw a female or male. They saw talent and potential. But to your point, I did see that with clients we worked with and in some organizations we interacted with.

I worked in situations where an individual would anticipate that the female in the room could not answer any technical questions, which was a ridiculous notion. There's still some of that today, but it's much less prevalent.

There are many females getting into careers in our field. Guidehouse is a good example. If you look at our ESG report, you'll see there are equal numbers of women entering the workforce.

It might even be more women. The real challenge is getting females through the pipeline. They're coming in at the entry levels, but what we are seeing is the struggle to get them up into those leadership positions.

This was particularly challenging for women who have children and take on leadership positions. Fortunately, many employers have changed their views and provide support to make this possible. I'm a great example of someone who is capable of being a mom and a leader in an organization.

I believe being a mom actually makes me a better leader.

PUF: That's changing in all organizations, right?

Michelle Fay: Absolutely. We're seeing it now more than ever. Since COVID-19, companies have become more flexible with remote work schedules. I had a former mentor tell me he always found the women who had children had an uncanny ability to multitask and were extremely efficient. This flexibility will hopefully provide more options for women to move up through the leadership pipeline.

PUF: What do you say to the young people, if maybe they look to you and ask, I want to know how to advance in my career — particularly younger women.

Michelle Fay: Mentoring is a big part of our jobs. It's important to show younger women in the organization, as we bring them into the company, what's possible, how to be successful in their careers, and how to accomplish the things they may want to do personally and professionally. To do this, we need to help them lay out their path for success and provide coaching and guidance along the way. 

PUF: When you talk to young people and they ask, should I come to your company? Is consulting a good field? What do you tell young people about consulting? 

Michelle Fay: Yes.If you have passion for doing something challenging, solving complex problems, and working with great people, it's a great career. But it can be challenging from a work-life balance perspective. There are times when you need to be where your clients are. 

I would tell someone considering this field to go in eyes wide open and make sure they have the support system they need if this is the career they want to pursue. Having a family, friends, and colleagues around to support you is important, perhaps more specifically for women.

PUF: What's most rewarding about what you do on a daily basis?

Michelle Fay: It's probably two things. One is helping clients do things they never thought they'd be able to do — solving complex problems. The other is seeing females be successful in reaching their career goals. I spend a lot of my time coaching and mentoring potential leaders within and outside of our organization and watching them grow and achieve success throughout their careers is extremely rewarding.  

Over thirty utilities and other companies have pooled their dollars to drive innovation in our industry via Energy Impact Partners. So EIP is having an enormous effect on shaping the industry's clean energy transition. Which makes its creation of the Elevate Future Fund especially interesting given this fund's mission to shape the transition with equity and diversity top of mind.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: Energy Impact Partners made a big announcement on the twenty-eighth of July.

EIP's Anthony Oni:Yes, we are very excited about EIP's newest fund called the Elevate Future Fund. It's focused on creating a more inclusive, equitable, and diverse clean energy future.

I want to take a step back and talk about EIP first. Energy Impact Partners is one of the first and largest special-purpose investment funds focused on the clean energy transition and on the low-carbon economy. It is made up of thirty-plus utility and industrial partners that together represent almost forty-five million customers and four hundred and fifty billion dollars in market capitalization.

EIP is a platform that invests all the way from early-stage to growth-stage companies. It is underpinned by a strong research and innovation team that works closely with our partner experts to drive value to our portfolio companies and provide innovation and insights on the utility of the future to our partners. 

When we think about the Elevate Future Fund, part of the reason why this fund exists is to make sure we are more broadly and inclusively considering who participates in this new economy that is being created. One of the things I take lessons from is some of the [economy's] transitions in the past.

When we look at the current landscape of how capital has been deployed, we know it's not equitable. We need only to look at the digital transition. We saw two parts of the country, the east and west coasts, that largely won out. Under-represented demographics didn't participate fully in that shift. 

So, as we go through this clean energy transition, we want to be more intentional about making sure access to capital flows to Black, Brown, Latinx, Indigenous groups, women, LBGTQ, veterans, and individuals with disabilities. We want to make sure that under-represented founders and entrepreneurs �" what I call the underestimated �" have the chance to take part in this economy.

Investing in people who have a unique lens in which they solve problems in those local communities is what is going to ensure a more efficient transition toward this low-carbon environment. We need to make sure that we are bringing everyone along. That is really the focus.

The Elevate Future Fund is targeting to raise a hundred and twenty million dollars. We are already more than halfway through our fund-raising goal through support from our existing utility partner network.

Our fund is taking a holistic approach. It's one that is unique to what I've seen in the venture capital space.

We are making sure we are invested in the communities that our industry partners serve. This includes all parts of America and directing capital to grow super-regional tier 1 and tier 2 suppliers to support this transition. We do this to have more impact for our partners but also to leverage their considerable resources to make more impact. 

We are also funding other minority funders and incubators. We are in the process of reviewing other funders. This is so that we can align our support through capital and invest in like-minded funds that will uphold the collective mission, through their own capital deployments and get more under-represented people to join our industry.

PUF: How will you find companies to invest in?

Anthony Oni: Our approach is multifaceted. One way, in particular, is leveraging our utility industry partners. Utilities in the U.S. have a public interest to make sure that everyone is served, that everyone has access to clean, safe, affordable, and reliable energy.

Those utilities have to work with different constituent groups. Whether it's your elected officials, mayors, city council, governors, community groups, education institutions, nonprofits, you name it. They have an embedded, ready-made pathway for engagement in local communities.

Those pathways are used for growth, workforce training, recruitment, and economic development. We are going to work closely with utilities to superimpose venture capital on these pathways, to show that venture capitalism can work in all under-served communities, while removing barriers and demystifying how access to capital works.

We will use that as a way to identify companies, and let founders and entrepreneurs know that great ideas can come from a multitude of backgrounds and demos. They can come from Black, Brown, and Latinx communities, not just the typical, mostly white, mostly male Silicon Valley demographic we often see.

When you look at historically Black colleges and universities, they graduate large numbers that are focused on engineering and other STEM-related fields. We want to make sure that clean energy, sustainability, this low carbon future, is a part of [what they go on to do].

Another source is going to be what we do in fund-to-fund investments, empowering other under-represented fund managers to look for and help build companies run by under-represented talent. Historically, some of the traditional venture capital firms only fund people who look like them.

What's going to grow next is middle America, those small cities, those small communities, and towns. So, it's important that we utilize that utility network that's already there, that are already engaged pathways, making sure that we are deploying capital through those networks to those groups that are looking to make change in our economy to a more sustainable future.

PUF: Tell us about how you got interested in trying to spur innovation and more evenly across our country.

Anthony Oni: It started at a young age, in New Jersey. My father [Dr. Ben Oni] worked at Bell Labs when I was four years old. Back in the day, Bell Labs was instrumental in a lot of innovations that we use today. He also taught at North Carolina A&T and is now Dean at Tuskegee University's College of Engineering, Architecture and Physical Sciences.

So, I know how important historically Black colleges and universities are to the fabric of our country. These are really treasured institutions that I had a very great pleasure growing up around and are key our collective success.

I spent twenty years working at Southern Company across its footprint and in multiple roles. One of the roles that was really impactful for me was economic development, where I spent a lot of time. You know, one of the things that you realize is again, how connected utilities are to the areas that they serve. Utilities are incentivized to make sure their communities grow. If the communities don't grow, the utilities don't grow.

I had a great opportunity to work on some really great education projects, one of which is called Ed Farm, which is a partnership between Alabama Power and Apple. We're fortunate that [Apple CEO] Tim Cook actually flew down and helped me launch the Ed Farm initiative, which worked to infuse technology and make investments in teachers and students in the classroom. The effort also aimed to create an ecosystem where we could invite other entrepreneurs, other smart people to help solve educational challenges.

As a Black founder [of Cloverly, a sustainability-as-a-service platform helping brands create carbon neutral experiences with customers], I understand the struggles to create a startup. The grind, it's not for the faint of heart. I think there's a lot I can do to empathize and support other founders.

Only two percent of the people who work in [Silicon Valley] are Black, making it hard to find people to identify with. Because in none of the rooms that I walked into while working and pitching my startup did I find the people who looked like me.

This year alone, according to data from Crunchbase, despite the overall venture capital funding increase we've seen, Black female startup founders have raised only 0.34 percent of the record hundred and forty-seven billion dollars invested in the first half of 2021. It tells you that there's still a long way to go to make sure that more groups have access to capital.

PUF: You're already going out and finding some of these great firms and trying to help them grow.

Anthony Oni: The investments we have made so far represent what we are trying to do. One in particular that I'm extremely excited about is the ChargerHelp! team, which has created a company focused on the clean energy transition. In short, it has built the first and only on-demand repair platform for electric vehicle charging stations [as detailed at chargerhelp.com]. The company is led by a terrific female founder and CEO and is providing jobs in the EV ecosystem to people who could be easily overlooked in the new job market of the energy transition.

They solve a real problem for the industry while providing net new green jobs throughout the United States. Today they're technicians who represent ex-oil, ex-factory, and ex-telecommunications. Thirty-five percent are veterans and sixty percent are people from under-represented backgrounds.

This story is unique in that they not only created this platform [for on-demand repair of charging stations] that dispatches local workers within hours-of-service ticket generation to have stations back on online within seventy-two hours or less. This is a company that has found favor with our utilities partners as they continue to grapple with ongoing maintenance of the EV infrastructure that our economy will need to count on for the future. 

I'm excited about what the future holds when we are more intentional about capital access to more diverse founders looking to solve some of the most challenging problems facing our planet.  

Dentons partnered with the Keystone Policy Center in late February to hold its Smart Cities and Connected Communities Think Tank with Keystone's Key Conversations. The virtual gathering is held to bring conversations with top energy leaders, policymakers, and key stakeholders, to explore issues and emerging challenges affecting energy and the environment.

The Infrastructure Investment in Jobs Act or IIJA, bipartisan infrastructure legislation signed into law last year, made a priority of historic investments in our nation's infrastructure. In the IIJA, Congress and the Biden administration recognized energy infrastructure as critical to our nation's future and provided over sixty billion dollars in supplemental funding for the Department of Energy. 

Modernizing the electricity grid is a key part of the IIJA's energy investments, and this virtual roundtable of experts investigated implementation of the IIJA. The in-depth discussion answers a lot of important questions. Enjoy these excerpts.
 

Chair, Dentons US Energy Practice, Clint Vince: We're going to be tackling the issue of infrastructure with particular focus on the grid, grid modernization, and implementation of the Infrastructure Act.

Moderator and Partner, Dentons, Andrew Shaw: It'd be great to get some brief comments on the importance of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill.

Principal Deputy Ass't. Secretary, Office of Electricity, DOE, Patricia Hoffman: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is an investment in our nation's infrastructure and in job creation. It is a key part of President Biden's Build Back Better agenda. 

This provides sixty-two billion dollars for DOE to work on a clean energy plan for the future, but also advance multiple aspects of our energy infrastructure. That includes manufacturing, jobs, and clean energy deployment, but it also includes advancing our electric grid. We want the electric grid to be the platform for innovation moving forward.

CEO, Gridwise Alliance, Karen Wayland: There's been a lot of focus on the need to build our transmission, both for resilience, reliability, and to integrate utility scale renewables, but less attention focused on the distribution system.

That's particularly important when we're talking about smart cities, is that the electricity system is changing rapidly but not fast enough to keep up with the functions we want that grid to deliver, both from distributed energy resources and utility scale renewables, but also cybersecurity, physical threats, and other things coming at the grid, like transportation electrification.

This Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has a significant amount of federal dollars that will leverage private capital to accelerate what we need in terms of modernizing the grid. Many of these decisions are made at the state level. 

In the case of regulated utilities, many of whom own distribution systems, they've got a Public Utility Commission they have to answer to, or it may be the ratepayers, and the owners of public power. This federal funding will help de-risk some of the decisions they have to make because these are big, expensive projects. We will see, over the next five years of spending, an acceleration of the modernization.

EVP, Lot Sixteen, Kellie Donnelly: The IIJA is incredibly important. It's a nearly one trillion-dollar package, and it was passed in the Senate on a bipartisan basis. It's a big deal in a fifty-fifty Senate. 

It deals with transmission, but it's a sweeping measure. It also deals with roads and bridges, broadband, and cyber, all under the auspices of climate change. This bill delivers real dollars. It's not just an authorization bill, but an appropriations measure.

Chief Regulatory and Communications Officer, Anterix, Chris Guttman-McCabe: What I'm excited about is we all agree the grid is at an inflection point with transmission, distribution, and all of the above. Expectations are changing — resiliency, redundancy, and dealing with climate change. All of these are resulting in new requirements on the grid.

The infrastructure legislation recognizes it. I anticipate that the assistant secretary and the team at the department are going to use these funds to do something transformational. That's key to me. This is a vehicle to modernize our infrastructure.

Dentons' Andrew Shaw: DOE recently announced a reorganization, including establishment of a new Undersecretary for Infrastructure to help in implementing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. Assistant secretary, discuss the importance of this reorganization.

DOE's Patricia Hoffman: I will reemphasize that the IIJA, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, is going after strategic, transformational, lasting investment.

The establishment and new structure that the department is putting in place is optimizing our expertise, our ability to pull all the options we have to tackle the investments needed as we continue to drive clean energy, resiliency, and think infrastructure investments we need for the future, as we want to empower states and communities.

We'll bring together all the new programs that have been provided through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. We will work together with our states and communities and think about the tools we need to catalyze economic development.

Under this new structure, we will have a Secretary for Science and Innovation, who will continue to work on the R&D portfolio, to develop next generation technologies and capabilities in the national laboratories in support of this mission.

Then there will be an Undersecretary for Infrastructure who's going to focus on strategic capabilities from managing large-scale demonstration and deployment programs and bringing technologies to the marketplace.

We're going to hire. We have established the Clean Energy Corps. It's a portal and website for folks to join the department, but also to become part of this exciting opportunity in looking at a transformation with infrastructure funding. This is not a short-term infusion of funding. It is an opportunity to be strategic and transformational.

Dentons' Andrew Shaw: As DOE moves forward in implementing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, what are some of the key questions the department should be considering?

Anterix's Chris Guttman-McCabe: For the folks who haven't been living this piece of legislation for the last many months, to give you a sense of the scale and scope, the White House guidebook is four hundred and sixty-five pages long, so that's supposed to be your sweet short, to-the-point, summary of the legislation. 

There are more than sixty programs and greater than sixty billion dollars in place. From a macro perspective, there is an underpinning theme of the programs that have funds attached to them. It may be strategic and transformational, and that's great. That will help folks who want to apply, to be able to shape their application.

At the micro level, there are hundreds of questions that come up, but some of the higher-level ones are, how do the programs interrelate with one another? Some of them will probably start earlier than others, but if you do a Venn diagram, you see words like resilience, modernize, data, across a multitude of the programs.

One of the key issues the department's going to have to tackle is how do those interrelate? Particularly if one starts before another, is an applicant going to have to check a box in only applying for program A, even though what they're trying to get supported might flow across a multitude of programs?

There are questions not only within the department of, how does an application work within different programs, but then you have different agencies. The Department of Transportation, NTIA at Department of Commerce; there are ways a single project could flow across different programs within DOE and then across programs outside of the department. Being able to understand and tackle those will be key for the team at DOE.

Gridwise Alliance's Karen Wayland: This is a multi-year appropriations bill. There're potentially five years for some programs where there'll be funding coming out of the agencies.

For potential applicants like our members, particularly the utilities that have long-term investment plans, knowing what might be funded in year one, in year two, what might be funded in the out years, would be important visibility for potential applicants to have. So, they know how to line up their projects around the kinds of funding opportunities they may see coming out of DOE.

DOE's Patricia Hoffman: I would add to that conversation to read some of the provisions that you're interested in applying for funding or you think you want to apply for funding under.

There are some requirements in certain positions. Other provisions have a lot of flexibility. Meet the requirements that have been established by statute. That's something we need to keep in mind as folks start thinking about cost-share requirements.

Certain provisions have strong matching funds cost-share requirements, the SGIG, the investment grant-type provisions, which is 40107. The resiliency provision has a matching cost share, which is 40101, but it also has a requirement that funds are capped at the last three years' worth of investments and resilience. 

This is going to have to be a holistic effort. It is going to require partnerships that folks may not have thought about before, which is working with states, state energy offices, communities, and figuring out what are some of those priorities folks want to look at from a transformational point of view.

We want to think about reducing that burden on states and applicants. Especially if it's a small utility or a small community, how do we ensure that funding can get to folks but not be a burden to them from a reporting requirements point of view?

Dentons' Andrew Shaw: There is interest in provisions that would bolster the federal government's backstop authority to approving transmission projects located in National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors. Can you provide some insight as to how DOE might exercise this new authority?

DOE's Patricia Hoffman: The department's trying to take a whole of government, but also all of our authority in getting transmission built. This is a sticky wicket. We know that generally, the cards are stacked against transmission.

We need transmission to capitalize on all the renewable energy resources. We need to have that capacity and ability to send renewable energy developed in, say, the midwest to the load centers.

First and foremost, is we have to work with the states, and we need to build a collaboration with the states on what transmission is required. That is getting everybody to understand transmission planning. What are ISOs and RTOs doing with respect to transmission?

We have as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, two and a half billion dollars in a borrowing authority that will allow transmission developers to come to the department with three types of applications. 

One is a loan, the other one is allowing us to buy capacity on a transmission line to get that across the finish line, and the third is to directly invest in transmission projects. We are going to use all our authorities but recognizing the National Interest Electric Transmission designation, is still an authority we have.

It is an authority of last resort. We want to be able incentivize, to have stakeholders come together and build transmission projects just because we know how important it is for a reliable, resilient electric grid.

Dentons' Andrew Shaw: Assistant secretary, you made some news talking about early wins in the grid and transmission funding. Can you provide some more context?

DOE's Patricia Hoffman: The early win is we do have some existing infrastructure. How can we maximize the capacity on the existing infrastructure?

A lot of discussion is around building new transmission lines and new transmission projects. Don't forget how we can expand existing capacity opportunities. Things like reconductoring, increasing the voltage on existing rights of ways, is an opportunity.

The other opportunities are grid-enhancing technologies, which are dynamic line ratings or power flow technologies that will allow for grid operators to increase capacity on the transmission system. I don't want us to spend every moment of our time thinking about new transmission lines.

Dentons' Andrew Shaw: Beyond transmission, what other opportunities with respect to the implementation of the Infrastructure Bill do you see to modernizing the grid?

Gridwise Alliance's Karen Wayland: There are at least twenty-billion dollars available that owners of distribution systems can apply for. There are two programs totaling eleven billion dollars for funding for resilience and with one billion dollars set aside specifically for small and medium utilities. There's the three billion dollars in smart grid investment grants with a specific focus on adding flexibility to the grid. Then there's money in the energy efficiency, renewable energy area for batteries.

There's money at Commerce in the telecom space, but there's a billion dollars specifically for middle mile communication infrastructure for utilities. There's forty-two and a half billion dollars in broadband money designed to go to the states.

But there's a neat provision in there that says that states may not make ineligible utilities. In other words, in some states, traditionally utilities have not been able to invest in broadband infrastructure, but this bill specifically requires states to allow utilities to be eligible for that funding.

Lot Sixteen'sKellie Donnelly: In addition to the smart grid funding, there's also weatherization funding as well in the transmission sector. There's seven and a half billion dollars set aside for EV charging. DOE is working collaboratively with the Department of Transportation, and they've set up a new office to do that.

There's going to be a lot of interest in the distribution of those funds and working with states to get the charging network up and running, because they're looking at the grid, not just to lower emissions in the electricity sector, but to also decarbonize other sectors, including transportation. There's also Ukraine and the cybersecurity threats. There's additional cybersecurity money for DOE in the IIJA.

Anterix's Chris Guttman-McCabe: Texas taught us we need greater operational intelligence and situational awareness. The wildfires throughout the west over the last three to five years have been horrific.

That's shown utilities need more tools in their toolbox to do things like de-energize lines that break before they hit the ground. Colonial Pipeline taught us that folks who manage critical infrastructure have to be right all the time and the bad guys only right once. The decarbonization goals have taught us we're going to have to find a way to integrate immense amounts of renewable and distributed energy.

Bits and pieces of the legislation talk about data, things that Anterix is excited about like broadband networks, wildfire mitigation, pilots, and R&D to support cybersecurity. Transmission is an extremely important component of the grid, but it's a component, and there are other significant benefits that will flow from this legislation.

Dentons' Clint Vince: Chris, when you talk about wildfire mitigation, for example, specifically, how would that happen with an LTE network?

Anterix's Chris Guttman-McCabe: A lot of times when you talk about the integration of broadband, it's hard to visualize what that means. We just finished a project with Schweitzer Engineering Labs.

What they investigated was the integration of their solution, it's called falling conductor and broadband. You can put sensors throughout lines, transmission, or distribution. They can recognize when a line is broken and using the low latency of private broadband, LTE in this case, they can de-energize that line before it hits the ground.

Think of the thousands of wildfires that are started each year from falling lines, the electrocutions, and all of the problems that happen in the Tornado Alley and the Hurricane Belt and add this capability in, that can de-energize these lines before they hit the ground.

There is a recognition in the legislation of these types of capabilities. Those are the things that people can visualize when they talk about a modernizing and evolving grid.  

While Burns & McDonnell has quite a history of working with diverse suppliers, it is enhancing such efforts. It just held its first Tapping Diverse Connections event, hosted by the Transmission & Distribution Group.

Tapping Diverse Connections aimed to further diverse supplier networking and elevate strategic sourcing opportunities by providing networking opportunities for more than twenty diverse suppliers from across the country. The goal is to provide maximum practical opportunities for diverse businesses to participate as subcontractors and suppliers for goods and services that support Burns & McDonnell clients and projects.

With alliances in place with Infinite Energy Construction and KDM Engineering, to help them grow their businesses, PUF wanted to know more about this intriguing collaboration. Herein is a conversation with a group who participated in that first Tapping Diverse Connections Event. Enjoy the discussion.
 

PUF's Steve Mitnick: Tell us about this event recently that was called Tapping Diverse Connections. What was the point of the event and how was it?

Ron Evans: The objective was to bring together diverse-owned businesses that have supported our T&D group, our T&D projects in the past, as well as companies that have been developing strong relationships with us recently. 

We named it Tapping Diverse Connections because it was a play on an autotransformer that automatically taps different connections based on the load in a system. We are proactively striving to tap the diverse alliances we have within this space, so we can develop and/or expand our relationships.

PUF: Andy, why is something like this event and these kinds of initiatives important to Burns & McDonnell?

Andy Jarvis: It's important that we have good, open communication with all our diverse suppliers, and this event drove that. A lot of great conversation took place. We are a much better organization when we leverage our diverse partnerships.

It makes us be able to meet our customers' or our clients' needs much better. It makes us better as a member of our community. It helps us to leverage the diverse partnerships and make those connections at our leadership level.

What I thought was fantastic was some of our diverse partners were also talking about ways they could work together. I got to meet Nilson and Kimberly here, and a lot of other business owners who are just as passionate about their business as we are. 

PUF: Kimberly, tell us about what your company does and what you did at the event.

Kimberly Moore: KDM Engineering offers electrical engineering design for distribution, telecommunications, and now, some substation, based off of our alliance. It was important to see the type of uplift in the background that Burns & McDonnell does for diverse firms that shine a light on us.

A lot of the times, it may seem like we are competing. But to have times like these where we can showcase our businesses, show that we do work with each other and it's not always a competition, and to have another firm highlight us, it makes for a great event.

PUF: Nilson, talk about what your company does and how you participated in this.

Nilson Goes: IEC, our most recent division, is IEC engineering. We offer engineering services specifically in the substation realm for investor-owned utility clients.

We have over a twenty-year history of working with Burns & McDonnell as electrical contractors on design, design assist, and construction projects throughout the U.S., now having entered into an alliance with our engineering group, which is our most recent business development. That's a special story for our company because we get to enter a new market because of that alliance.

PUF: Ron and Andy, what do you do to get minority-owned businesses involved in projects?

Ron Evans: It's not one approach to identifying companies that support our projects. I can tell you a few of the ways we've geared or given guidelines for our T&D group to engage with diverse-owned business.

Number one is looking within our database. We have a database that captures all companies we work with over the years. That's one way we're using tools and data analytics internally to identify companies and do outreach.

Another way is similar to the event we held. We regularly attend events like that, hosted by utility clients or industry organizations. That's an effective avenue to identifying companies to seek out.

If we're not at an event or a conference, then it's the relationships we have in the industry that have made recommendations.

We'll do our diligence to contact them, vet them, and onboard them to our system. 

Andy Jarvis: It's intentionality by making it a priority from leadership down to project teams that work with our diverse businesses. We also promoted Ron Evans to be our diverse business director.

We're building a structure around Ron that will enable him to better support our project teams, business lines, and regional offices. We want to create the tools that allow Ron to be successful, be a key leader in diverse business engagement, and reinforce the importance of making this a priority. 

Ron's been proactive and intentional in his efforts and we're nowhere near the end. We're just starting to see some good traction, but it's about intentionality ultimately.

PUF: Kimberly, how's business, what are the growth opportunities, and also some of the challenges?

Kimberly Moore: Business is positive. A lot of work is happening and that is on the radars of all of these utilities right now. We're happy to be at the table to provide engineering services.

There are a lot of growth opportunities for us. Without this alliance, we would not have been able to enter the substation realm. It's a long, expensive process to garner clients to take a chance on you, when you're hiring one by one, it's unheard of.

We're not only building that group, but the partnership with Burns & McDonnell is providing the work for that group to remain billable to the client, as well as develop future work. No one company can handle all of the business. 

So, we have alliances like these and with Nilson. We just met, but I can tell we're going to be running into each other and maybe collaborating, because it's just that much work going on right now. The partnerships are important.

PUF: Nilson, how's business? How does the future look for your company?

Nilson Goes: It's good. To say you're busy is not necessarily something that sets you apart. It's, are you busy doing the right things or are you moving in a direction you should be moving strategically?

That's what excites me about this alliance with Burns & McDonnell and entrance into this market. This market has a high barrier of entry, not dissimilar to starting a car company or an airline company.

Without this relationship we're building, it is difficult to enter in a financially solvent way. This isn't something that started recently, as I've been working with them for some twenty years and they have invested in bringing in Tuck School of Business professors to provide business training for their diverse contractors. They fly people in from all over the country to do that in Kansas City.

What we're seeing now is an evolution in how we look at diverse businesses and at competition. I don't view Kimberly as competition. I view her as somebody I can collaborate with. By pulling us together, we've already prequalified each other. 

There's more work than we can possibly handle. It's a market that's forecasted to grow. Our grid is stressed. We're going to need more resources put in place, more things designed, and built. 

PUF: The utilities and all ultimate customers, how do they work with you on the subject of increasing diversity of the utility spend and who's building the infrastructure of tomorrow?

Ron Evans: We support one another by asking one another to come along, to meet a certain business, vet a business or support each other's events. We make sure we're building mutual connections and identifying project opportunities to include diverse-owned businesses.

By continuing to communicate and support one another with these opportunities, we also stay abreast of how companies are growing or planning to grow their businesses. With that growth, we can explore future opportunities and how we prepare for them today. 

PUF: Andy, you talked to utility execs across the country. What's your sense of what they're looking for and their interest in diversifying the utility spend?

Andy Jarvis: They're looking for companies like Burns & McDonnell to do what we've been doing, and that's expand and grow our small and diverse supplier and consultant pool. We're a big company. We have a lot of resources, and abilities to reach out and create programs like we've done.

Nearly all our clients, and all our offices, these are things we are expected to do and conversations they're having with us. It's becoming the norm. It's the business practice now. 

It allows us to perform additional work that maybe we couldn't do, just because we might not have the resources available. We're actively hiring but there's substantial competition to hire qualified people. Leveraging our diverse businesses helps us overcome some of these challenges.

We can leverage our partnerships and execute work that maybe otherwise we wouldn't be able to do. It's beneficial for everybody. It's proven that it works for us, and we're going to continue to do it.

PUF: Burns & McDonnell has a focus on innovation of technologies and ways of working. Talk about how this fits together with innovation and working with more companies.

Ron Evans: Our employee ownership culture is the foundation of why we focus so much on innovation. I apply it to the work I lead currently and am able to look at the traditional ways we've done things, traditional partners or execution models. I'm able to say, let's challenge our ways, and if necessary, let's break them and change.

Andy Jarvis: They go hand in hand. We look for innovative ways to bring our diverse partners into our projects. It can be a different contracting model, delivery model, or market that we're trying to pursue. We can bring a diverse partner with expertise in that market that we can leverage. That entrepreneurial culture we have is something we apply to our projects, partnerships, and suppliers. 

Ron Evans: When you talk about innovation, there's a lot of opportunity and a lot we've been focusing on around our tools, and data analytics. Measuring the work we do in this space, including the work with diversely-owned businesses, there are opportunities to innovate when it comes to metrics.

What are we going to measure and how will we analyze the data? What tools will we use to analyze the data in a way that measures our performance, but also helps drive future goals and success?

PUF: Kimberly and Nilson, what do your companies bring to the table in terms of innovation for this industry, the utilities, and the country?

Kimberly Moore: It's the entrepreneurial spirit. We believe in diversity of thought. We participate in a lot of internal R&D, internal discussion, just to be able to bring a different perspective to the table, to see how we can be on the more innovative side of the industry.

Nilson Goes: From our different divisions of being electrical contractors, as well as now design engineers too, we try to leverage those two competencies to create value and provide that to our IOU clients. Having that relationship with Burns & McDonnell allows us to add a type of momentum to that.

We create and provide value because we are accustomed to building things. As we design things for clients, we have the perspective of what it's going to be like for those people who are going to be putting it in place. We tell a story that it's going to be a better design in the sense of, how you maintain it, all those things from affordability, and however they define value.

Our company's mission is we take any client's mission and make it our own. That's the best way for us to understand, what makes them tick, their problems, issues, and how we can position ourselves to solve them. That's proven to be a good recipe for success.

Ron Evans: The great thing about our relationships is we partner beyond projects. I'll give you one example. I'm the President of the American Association of Blacks in Energy — AABE.

Every year I reach out to Kimberly and Nilson for their support for scholarships for inner-city school kids. I know Nilson is a part of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Kansas City and that's another area where we collaborate. Kimberly has a nonprofit.

Kimberly Moore: I started Calculated Genius in 2017. The focus is to provide summer programming for high school kids in Chicago. It's to provide scholarships to women going into an engineering field, and mentorship to anyone going into college who may be first generation.

We've given out about eighty thousand dollars the past couple of years in scholarships. We've had about one hundred kids in our summer programs. We look forward to increasing those numbers and making more of an impact.

Nilson Goes: I'm on the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. We've been long-time members and I've served on the board there. Reaching out to diverse businesses is not innovative. It's a business necessity. 

It's beyond trying to vet them and fill out some contract or qualification form. The story is in the investments. It's from doing innovative things in regard to helping educate through business protocols, business school, and the Tapping Diverse Connections event.

If you can think of another design firm that's doing those types of things, let me know because I'm not aware of it, and I think I would be. That's where some examples of that innovation lie.

Those things are important for our communities. Our values are congruent. It just makes the way we work together so much easier because we speak the same language.

How energy and utilities companies show up in their communities takes thoughtful and hard work these days. That is because companies realize the importance of the workforce reflecting those communities in which they serve, and yet it is so much more.

But realizing importance and achievement are two different things, because there are layers involved in equity. Equity involves employees, yes, but all stakeholders in a service territory, as well as weaving together issues surrounding the environment, economics, education, and more.

Public Utilities Fortnightly brought together three experts on equity issues, who have dedicated their lives to this endeavor and have powerful voices on the subject. Listen in on these conversations with Southern Company's Jonathan Porter and Eversource Energy's Theresa Hopkins-Staten, led by Larry Glover.
 

Larry Glover: Talk about your rise to Senior Vice President of Customer Operations for Alabama Power.

Jonathan Porter: I've been with Southern Co./Alabama Powermpany for a little over twenty-three years. I began working here in June 1991, a week after I graduated high school. I was the only non-engineering intern hired through INROADS.

The INROADS organization, founded 1970, is dedicated to identifying high potential minority talent. INROADS partnered with several Fortune 500 companies, and Alabama Power/Southern Company was one.

You intern with that company, the four or five years you're in college, and each summer you come back, you're given more responsibility. The summer going to your senior year, you are doing mostly what a full-time person out of college would be doing.

I turned down several job offers from Tuskegee's Career Placement Center because I wanted to work with Alabama Power. I was an athlete, had good grades, and I was graduating cum laude.

I felt I needed to return to Alabama, to give back to the state that gave so much to me. About two months before graduating, I got a call from HR, and the recruiter I had a relationship with.

Unfortunately, in the spring of 1995, Southern Company was going through a major reorg, reducing headcount. Alabama Power was part of that. I was advised that the company wasn't going to extend full-time offers to their interns.

It was devastating to get that call two months before graduation, having turned down job offers from Philip Morris, 3M, and several banks. But through INROADS, I ended up with an offer from Protective Life, a major corporation in Birmingham, also an INROADS sponsor. I worked there for about two and a half years, went back to school, and got my MBA.

Then, I had an opportunity to serve as a manager at INROADS, responsible for recruiting interns in business, engineering, computer science. The corporate clients I was recruiting for were Southern Companies, such as Southern Nuclear, Alabama Power, and several others.

 The Chairman of the Board of INROADS in Birmingham was the former CEO of Southern Nuclear, George Hairston. One day, he said, "Jonathan, you interned with Alabama Power and Southern. Would you be interested in coming back full-time as a recruiter for Southern Company?" And I said, "Absolutely." Because I love Southern Company.

I came back to Southern Company in February 2000 as the Lead Diversity Recruiter. I was in the Alabama Power Corporate headquarters, but my clients were Mississippi Power, Gulf Power, Southern Nuclear. I also recruited for Alabama Power.

One of my primary responsibilities was to increase the number of minority and female engineers into the company. Part of that strategy was to continue to strengthen and enhance our relationships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities, HBCUs, to go where the talent is.

There are about thirteen ABET-accredited HBCUs, which is the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. I expanded our outreach and engagement.

After several moves up the corporate ladder, I became Vice President of the Birmingham Division of Alabama Power, and in 2019, I was asked to move into my current role. I'm responsible for strategic oversight of our customer interactions with the company statewide, leading a team of about six hundred folks.

Larry Glover: Southern Company with multiple operating companies is a big universe. How do you manage that and what are some of the unique challenges?

Jonathan Porter: One of the reasons I selected Southern Company is because of its system. We have operating companies, and other companies within Southern, and you can get different experiences.

When I first started with the company, twenty-three years ago, we were primarily coal, natural gas, about fifteen percent nuclear, and some hydro. Over the years, we transitioned to a diverse portfolio of fuel sources, hydro, nuclear, natural gas, biomass, solar, wind, and you name it.

When I look at the different fuel sources we have, that's exciting, when we talk about our level of HBCU engagement, it's making sure we have different sources of talent. Making sure we are bringing different ways of solving problems to the table, different ways of looking at issues.

We believe we must have this broad, diverse mix, from a recruitment standpoint, and where we get our talent. It should be through co-ops and interns, recruitment of college graduates, and mid-career, some executive hiring. 

It is making sure we're not limiting our recruitment base to just schools in the southeast, or predominantly White or Black institutions. We also look at historically Hispanic-serving institutions.

We are looking for problem solvers. Because our customer base, fuel sources, communities in which we serve, and elected officials we must work with, are so diverse, it is important that we have a diverse workforce that brings in different viewpoints, skill sets, and competencies, but collectively, through inclusion.

Larry Glover: Talk about what makes your programs unique and the impact you're having in working through HBCUs.

Jonathan Porter: What is unique about Southern is we're intentional about engagement in what we do with our Historical Black College and Universities. We're intentional about having relationships with our HBCUs, their C-Suite, presidents, leadership, and folks in their career placement center. They don't just see us at the career fair.

We have intentional relationships with organizations such as INROADS, National Urban League, and others that partner with our HBCUs. Also, we are intentional with our co-op and intern programs, and focus on making sure that we have the right mix of students.

You must go where the talent is. The UNCF put out a report in 2017, entitled, Out-Punching Their Weight, about how HBCUs out-punched their weight, and are producing the vast majority of the bachelor's degrees for African Americans around the country, and they're smaller schools.

North Carolina A&T is the number one producer of African American engineers in the country. We need to go there. Tuskegee is the number two producer of African American engineers in the country. That's why we go there. 

We believe in the quality and talent that exists in our HBCUs. We believe in their leadership. We understand that HBCUs were created because of a need to educate former slaves. We're committed to them.

Larry Glover: You have a program where you take senior executives to HBCU schools, to have that personal experience. Talk about that and why it is important.

Jonathan Porter: We rolled it out in spring of 2021. We looked at the number of HBCU graduates we have working at Southern Company and created a Southern Company HBCU Alumni Network to support inclusion efforts through engagement with our employees and our HBCUs.

Our goals are to facilitate comradery and support for HBCU alumni and employees within Southern, the Company's diversity recruiting strategy on our HBCU campuses, and the company's talent and development initiatives for members in the network.

We're helping with this sense of belonging and retention for our African American employees.

We are there as alums of HBCUs, the network. We work with our managers and executives to highlight the unique needs and challenges of HBCUs and talk about how we can help HBCU students, and the company identify partnership opportunities, so our HBCUs can thrive and flourish.

Our goal is to have every member in our Southern Company HBCU Alumni Network give back to their HBCU so that we can have one hundred percent participation in giving to our HBCUs. We can't make them, but the goal is to have them all give back to HBCUs.

This network is designed to help with DE&I, recruiting, development, engagement, and retention. Because we realize that our HBCUs have a strong economic impact in the service territories we operate in. 

If it's good for our HBCUs, it is good for the communities in which we serve, whether through employment impact, payroll taxes, research dollars. Lifetime earnings for each graduating class, in that perspective, it's important for us to support them.

Several of us on the executive committee are officers of The Southern Company HBCU Alumni Network. I met with every member of the Southern Company Management Council, our top CEOs, and asked them to commit, every year, that they would visit with leadership on campus at HBCUs in their service territory. 

Also, to invite HBCU leadership in their service territory to corporate headquarters, to meet with leadership at Southern. The key is our executives have committed to giving of their time, talent, and treasure.

Larry Glover: Talk about the impact of that effort at HBCUs, critical measures, on Southern Company.

Jonathan Porter: We're getting top-notch talent who will come in, solve a ton of problems, issues, and challenges that the industry has. That impact, one, is we're getting talent into our industry, which as we all know, is aging.

We're getting talent that represents and reflects the communities in which we serve. We cannot discount the importance of having people that look like the community. 

I don't care what spectrum of diversity or representation you want to look at, whether from a demographic standpoint, a race and ethnicity standpoint, a sexual orientation standpoint. It's important we have folks that look like the communities in which we serve. 

We are all tribal in nature. If you're from the northeast, and you grew up in Boston, you can be in Alabama, or Atlanta, or wherever, and if you meet someone from Boston, you immediately feel you are in a tribe. So, it's important we have that diversity.

Having that representation allows Southern Company, and all our companies, to be more impactful in what we do in our community and government relations. It brings credibility and validity to the people we have. 

One of the key things people talk about is the need for a workforce. So, we are helping our HBCUs create this workforce. Not just for Southern Company, but for these communities in which we serve.

When companies start looking at which cities or communities they're going to establish their business, one of the first things they want to look at, outside of energy prices, is what the workforce looks like in that area.

Larry Glover: How do we make this great energy transition that will be zero carbon by 2050? How should HBCUs be partnered to help build those solutions for the future?

Jonathan Porter: We must continue, not only at Southern, but our industry, to take it to the next level. Whether it's HBCU or predominantly white universities, we must take advantage of our educational institutions. 

We must tackle this before it gets to the college and university level. We must be doing things in middle and high schools.

Consumer behavior and expectations are changing at light speed. AI technology is happening. I remember Tom Fanning [just retired Southern Company CEO] talking ten years ago, if not more, about distributed generation, before it was even popular.

As an industry, as we partner with these HBCUs, and all our higher institutions of learning, we must have a forward-looking approach to those technologies that exist, and even those that don't. We're going to need that as an industry.

The regulated utility industry has been slow to change. Take the fact that Southern Company is the only utility company building a new nuclear plant in forty years. One of the greatest needs moving forward as technology increases is energy.

As all these technological advancements happen, we must be right there, from an energy standpoint. No longer is it that the 3Ms, Googles, and Apples of the world will be leading this technology. Then they call Southern Company and say, "Hey, we need power." It should be a parallel relationship, that we are working on these partnerships with these historically innovative companies and be right there with them.

We must have our HBCUs engaged with them. Because if we don't, as these cool, sexy, innovative companies are there recruiting, we don't want the students seeing us as the old, staid utility company.

We want those deans of engineering and information science, when they're having recruiting fairs for top-notch students coming out of high school, to be saying, "Hey, have you considered energy?"

Larry Glover: What is your message to senior leaders at utilities?

Jonathan Porter: If you look at the average scores of a lot of the students that go to HBCUs, they're talented. There is outstanding talent at our HBCUs. A good product doesn't have an expiration date. HBCUs have great products. So, we should be there, tapping into that talent.

Equity conversations at fortnightly.com:

• Jonathan Porter, Alabama Power/Southern Co. SVP of Customer Operations

• Theresa Hopkins-Staten, Eversource Energy VP of Corporate Citizenship and Equity

How energy and utilities companies show up in their communities takes thoughtful and hard work these days. That is because companies realize the importance of the workforce reflecting those communities in which they serve, and yet it is so much more.

But realizing importance and achievement are two different things, because there are layers involved in equity. Equity involves employees, yes, but all stakeholders in a service territory, as well as weaving together issues surrounding the environment, economics, education, and more.

Public Utilities Fortnightly brought together three experts on equity issues, who have dedicated their lives to this endeavor and have powerful voices on the subject. Listen in on these conversations with Southern Company's Jonathan Porter and Eversource Energy's Theresa Hopkins-Staten, led by Larry Glover.
 

Larry Glover: At Eversource, you are President of the Eversource Foundation and VP of Corporate Citizenship and Equity. Why was equity added and how is that an important piece of this conversation?

Theresa Hopkins-Staten: I got a call in May of 2021 from our now acting Chief Operations Officer Jim Hunt, whom I reported to, saying, "Theresa, we created this position of Vice President of Corporate Citizenship and Equity and Joe Nolan"— who had just become CEO — "said he felt it would be a great position for you." 

Eversource was part of the movement to make certain that our policies, practices, and decision-making processes were equitable, and created my position. When I began this work in 2021, we didn't have a full understanding of what equity meant because we had never been asked to examine our decision-making practices or policies through an equitable lens.

Understanding the opportunity, I turned to our leadership to gain insight on what we needed to focus on at Eversource. I had candid conversations with seventeen of our top leaders around equity, what it meant to them, their business units, and our company. Were they talking about it currently? Is it embedded in policies and business practices?

Based on their responses, there were six recurring themes, which guided the work at Eversource.

I also asked each leader to identify someone from their team to join me on this equity journey, because it could not just be me. It had to be a collective and diverse effort. They all identified someone to be on what I later called the Pro-Equity Advisory Team or PEAT.

We all knew about equality but did not make a distinction between equity and equality and why both mattered. As I looked at our peers in Fortune 500 companies, this was all new and evolving, with some taking the equity and EJ work and tucking it into their diversity and inclusion strategy or their sustainability work, so companies were doing it differently. There was no roadmap.

I've been with Eversource for thirty-five years and have experience across many of our business areas interacting with regulators, customers, and communities. I spent time doing an executive rotation in our operations area to get a firsthand view into how operations worked.

I worked with union/nonunion employees. I went into manholes, attended grievance hearings, and did safety investigations. It gave me a first-hand look at the work we do and how our customers see that work.

I still rely on those experiences in my work today to drive important conversations around equity and how as a company we can operationalize equity across all parts of our business.

Larry Glover: Talk about that extensive program you put together and its goals.

Theresa Hopkins-Staten: We wanted to operationalize equity across Eversource. To build a culture that reflects our equity vision and our commitment. 

Incorporating equity into our decision-making policies and practices, resulting in fair and equitable outcomes for our communities and our customers, particularly customers and communities that have been historically underserved, under-resourced, and environmentally overburdened. That was the goal.

First, we identified our stakeholders and defined equity at Eversource. We had to have a clear definition and a face to begin this work.

This is how we defined it: "Equity means engaging all stakeholders — including our customers and communities with respect and dignity while working toward fair and just outcomes, especially for those burdened with economic challenges, racial inequity, negative environmental impacts and justice disparities."

We then developed a commitment statement that clearly defines principles that align with our equity definition and boldly articulates what Eversource is prepared to do to lead this trailblazing work; developed guidelines; resource tools; and training for our employees.

From there, we identified strategic pillars to anchor our equity work in. To implement that in the real world, we focus on communications effectiveness. How are we talking to our customers? Do we know our customer demographics, different languages, dialects spoken? The best channels to communicate with them?

We increased our engagement with underserved and environmental justice communities. Do we know who the key influencers are in our communities? You can't assume you have the answers and know what's best. You must ask and at the end of the conversation, always leave people with their dignity and respect intact.

Seek to balance resiliency, equity, and affordability by proactively listening to our customers early in any process before any plans are finalized or decisions are made. A clean energy future, getting energy to high-growth areas on our system, electrification, will all require new infrastructure and upgrading existing assets.

We must be able to explain to our customers the why behind our work and the benefits they receive. We must understand customer needs, design programs and services to address the need, and work to remove barriers to their participation in our programs and services to ensure equitable outcomes.

It's important to meet our customers where they are by acknowledging historical inequities and ongoing disparities, challenges, and concerns. That's the only way to open the lines of communication and to begin to build trust.

Larry Glover: Are you seeing results? Are you seeing greater collaboration, people doing things they would not have done a year ago before this started? What's been the impact on people and your business?

Theresa Hopkins-Staten: The impact on our employees is evident. People are having conversations and are asking questions. I've had employees call me and say, "I want to understand this topic better."

I currently have a team of two and just hired a Director of Equity and Environmental Justice. One of the functions is to support business partners to integrate equity and EJ priorities into their work that directly impacts our communities.

My team attends meetings throughout our company to discuss equity and environmental justice, all in an effort to improve our operational systems and practices to ensure we reach fair and equitable outcomes for our customers and communities.

In 2024, our business partners will have at least one equity goal, and some of them voluntarily took the initiative to have one this year. There is a level of comfort, I'm happy to see and say around having conversations. Our goal is to counsel people in, and not to cancel them out.

We did an online survey of one thousand Eversource employees before launching the PEAT's Equity Fundamentals Training last October. Very few employees responded that they had knowledge of the company incorporating equity into how we serve communities or customers, were aware of the PEAT's work or knew the distinction between equity and equality.

Fast forward to today, and we surveyed two thousand five hundred employees who completed the equity training and there was a dramatic improvement in the results. Over eighty-eight percent of the employees responding knew the difference between equity and equality and felt the company is committed to equity and environmental justice.

Larry Glover: Talk about the community benefits plan, what that looked like, and what you expect for the impact on the community.

Theresa Hopkins-Staten: A community benefits plan was a part of an application submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy as part of the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnership and Smart Grid Grants Program. 

The plan that we submitted required us to do outreach to some partners, Boys and Girls Clubs of Hartford (BGCH), Urban League of Greater Hartford, Capital Community College in Connecticut, the Community Renewal Team, and others. We also engaged prominent environmental justice leaders to get feedback on our proposal and incorporated their suggested changes.

Eversource has a long-standing partnership with BGCH and if we're successful, part of the grant will go to BGCH to install roof-top solar panels and behind-the-meter battery energy storage. We'll also create an Energy Innovation Center to build on existing STEM initiatives at the Club.

Community partners have agreed to support the Diversity Workforce Training Partners and Pre-apprenticeship Program in our application.

In addition to the environmental justice advocates in Hartford, we've reached out to organizations in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and have been told, "We don't think you're as sensitive to the history that many of these communities have been subject to, and you can do a better job."

We listened, learned, and agreed that some things need to be improved. Once we do that, the tone of the conversation usually changes.

Larry Glover: You have younger employees joining Eversource, and are they different?

Theresa Hopkins-Staten: There's a business case around this work. A company's reputation is sixty-three percent of its value. Our company's reputation is our greatest asset. 

As you hire younger professionals into the company, they want to know, what is your ESG commitment? They want to know what are you doing around equity, environmental justice, and inclusion?

They want to hear about those things. The younger generation being hired into the company cares passionately about these issues. 

I taught a class at Central Connecticut State University and their questions were about how we treat our employees. Not about pension plans or salaries. If they don't see you walk the talk and demonstrate a true commitment to these values, they'll leave.

Our senior team understands the business case, but more important understands it's the right thing to do. When you don't do it, you get opposition in dockets, siting proceedings, and regulatory proceedings. It delays decisions, which increases costs.

This is a change management initiative, so we had an Organizational Change Management and Communication subcommittee and strategy, which started developing a work plan around what the cadence would be to roll this out to employees.

We also had a Governance Committee subcommittee because we knew once members went back to their blue-sky work, we needed an entity to oversee the progress we were making. Our CEO, Joe Nolan, appointed nine officers to the Governance Committee to oversee the work, making certain we stay on task and on top of our commitment to equity and environmental justice.

Larry Glover: What is your message nationally to the senior audience?

Theresa Hopkins-Staten: My hope is that we all take away something meaningful from the challenges and opportunities presented in equity and environmental justice work. Let us embrace our collective humanity recognizing the value of each community, different history, experiences and resulting needs.

Operationalizing equity starts from within the organization and branches out. Once we give our employees the tools, resources, and awareness they need to use the equity lens effectively and confidently, we will all be better off. It's no small feat, but it's something that we can accomplish. I'm proud to lead this work for Eversource.

Equity conversations at fortnightly.com:

• Jonathan Porter, Alabama Power/Southern Co. SVP of Customer Operations

• Theresa Hopkins-Staten, Eversource Energy VP of Corporate Citizenship and Equity

Inspired by the keynote address’ title, this annual event adopted “Beyond Ordinary” as its theme. That when utilities, their contractors, and subcontractors are thinking about increasing the diversity of the workforce across the companies that help them engineer, construct, modernize, and maintain the nation’s energy infrastructure, that this thinking breaks out and goes beyond the tried and true.

This is exactly what keynoter Terry Malone eloquently urged at the conference. This also is what the conference’s panel discussions came back to again and again. Such as the panel of diverse subcontractor leaders. Such as the panel of utility diversity leaders. And such as in the remarks of the host organization, the engineering firm Burns & McDonnell.

That panel discussion among four diverse subcontractor leaders was inspiring, as well. The CEO of Trice Construction, the Presidents of APC Construction and EVS, and the Business Development Director of Blaze Contracting all brought to this discussion stories of their small but growing businesses and unique perspectives on how they and similar companies nationwide can take on increasing roles in the energy transformation. Their stories and perspectives can be found here too.

'Equity in Energy' articles at fortnightly.com:

• Tremese Davis, Nicor Gas VP of Operations and Taiwan Brown, Entergy VP of Diversity and Workforce Strategies
• Cornell Johnson, Center for Energy Workforce Development Director of DEI
• Keith Porta, APC Construction President
• Gayl Turk, Blaze Contracting Director of Business Development
• Stephanie Hickman, Trice Construction CEO
• Andy Kim, EVS Engineering President

Image: A few high school and college students talked about what they learned from their WeWorkKC experience.

The "Equity in Energy" event adopted its keynote address' title "Beyond Ordinary" as its theme. A panel discussion among four diverse subcontractor leaders was inspiring as well. The CEO of Trice Construction, the Presidents of APC Construction and EVS, and the Business Development Director of Blaze Contracting all brought unique perspectives on how they and similar companies nationwide can take on increasing roles in the energy transformation.
 

PUF's Steve Mitnick: Talk about your backgrounds that brought you to your current positions.

Taiwan Brown: I have an electrical engineering degree. I grew up in the south, in Greensboro, North Carolina. The majority of my experiences growing up were predominantly Black.

Take my schooling. I went to a predominantly Black high school. I went to a historically Black university, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

My first job out of college was at Texas Instruments. TI at that time, was about thirty thousand people. It was a global company. There were people from all over.

Even the food. I had never tasted Indian food. There were many new experiences that I had. I had to learn. Some of it was through exposure.

There were things that people did growing up that I had never experienced. I was in a technical sales rotation program. It was male dominated. The guys liked playing golf. I was trying to fit in. I was early in my career.

Some of my colleagues and I decided we're going to learn how to play golf. We took golf lessons. After the third one, I'm like, okay, I know they say deals happen on the golf course, but I can't even see the ball.

Why am I even trying to do it? I stopped taking the lessons. I realized I'm going to have to find another way and something that works for me, to close the deal. Rather than trying to assimilate, finding a way to be me and make it work.

Tremese Davis: I also had a Black experience growing up. Grew up in a middle class, predominantly Black neighborhood. Went to school with mostly Black kids. I encountered other races on a daily basis when I went to college.

Not only, how do I fit in? It was understanding what was acceptable for some wasn't always acceptable for me.

Even in the workplace now, after twenty-five years in this industry, how I show up. I'm always conscious of it.

Because if I am emotional, then I'm too emotional. If my male counterpart is emotional, he's passionate. It's understanding what's acceptable for me.

Taiwan Brown: That's a good point. We're both at the executive levels of our organization. It's not like you get to this place where you have per se arrived. Where you're not thinking about how I show up. What my appearance looks like. Making sure I'm ready to knock the presentation out of the park. That doesn't go away.

We've both been in the workforce twenty-plus years. We've climbed the corporate ladder and achieved levels of success. But that doesn't go away.

Tremese Davis: It doesn't go away. If I have a misstep, then the perception is all Black women have that same misstep. White males don't deal with that.

If Paul makes a mistake, that's Paul's mistake. No one says, I'm not going to work with any other White person because I had this experience with Paul. If it's Tremese or Taiwan who made a mistake, or who said something I didn't like, now that becomes your experience with every Black woman you encounter.

PUF: How does this translate to your job?

Taiwan Brown: At the foundational level, it is making sure people understand what we're even talking about when we talk about these concepts. Diversity is difference. There are a variety of differences. Even though Tremese and I have some similar experiences, we're still different.

It's not just identity differences, what you can see. It's also our personalities, backgrounds, and experiences. It's what shapes us. Even how we approach problem solving. Our personalities, all those are different.

It's about how to have an appreciation of those differences, encourage you to be uniquely you, who you are, and bring your best authentic self into the workplace. One of the things you can probably tell about me is I'm expressive. I talk with my hands.

If people tell me to tone down, well, you may not get the best me if I have to be too contained. But if my personality can shine through, and I feel like I can contribute in the way that suits me, you're going to get the best out of me. Because I'm going to be engaged. I'm going to want to contribute.

We also talk about inclusion. How do you leverage the differences that each of us bring? Ultimately, it's that sense of belonging.

At Entergy, we talk about belonging as a feeling. A feeling that you're a part of the team. That you have a seat at the table. That you can express yourself.

Sometimes I ask about a time when you didn't feel you belong? Guess what? We all know what that feels like.

If we have coworkers, employees at our organizations, who don't feel like they belong when they come to work, or when they are part of a team, are they going to do their best work? Are you going to get innovative problem solving and creative ideas?

PUF: It is about respect for being able to show your true self.

Tremese Davis: It's what Taiwan just talked about. Having an environment where you can have conversations, and even if you don't agree, can you respectfully disagree? 

I always aim to understand. I may not like what you said. Or what you did. But I aim to understand your perspective.

Taiwan Brown: Absolutely. Mutual respect.

Tremese Davis: Right. We're made to be different. That's the spirit of DEI. Making sure that every person feels included, regardless of who you are, where you're from, what your preferences are.

The word belonging has an I-N-G on the end. Which means it's always happening.

PUF: Where will DEI be in three years?

Taiwan Brown: We're still going to be on the journey. Because this work is a journey. Nobody has cracked the code. We've seen some progress. We've seen some improvement.

We've been trying over the past several years to unite and bring people together. Whereas, in society as a whole right now, there's so much division.

However, for the people and companies for whom DEI is a value, and it is at their core, you're going to continue to see them make progress and strides. I don't think it's going to be quick. Because this work takes time.

Especially when you try to do it right. When you're not just checking a box.

Because part of it is about relationships and gaining understanding. That means bringing people together, truly building relationships, and fostering meaningful connections and dialogue.

Sometimes these things are tough to talk about. For all of us. For the companies where it's a value, you're going to see some strides and success.

At Entergy, I think about areas where we've had success. Where you see diverse teams coming together and you see their accomplishments. The business case is proven. We're getting results.

It's the cognitive abilities to think in different perspectives. When you're bringing in somebody early career, and you're putting them with somebody who's more seasoned, you're seeing them bounce ideas off each other. That's where true magic really happens.

PUF: Are you optimistic?

Tremese Davis: I am optimistic. However, I'm realistic as well. I believe that in the world we live in today, we are more open to talking about our differences. Whether they are physical differences, religious differences, political differences.

When I started my career, you didn't have those kinds of conversations in the workplace. So, I am optimistic that we have come as far as we've come. But we still have a lot further to go. Some of the things happening politically are moving us backward rather than forward. Leaders will have to hold to the things we all say we value to keep driving DEI.

'Equity in Energy' articles at fortnightly.com:

• Tremese Davis, Nicor Gas VP of Operations and Taiwan Brown, Entergy VP of Diversity and Workforce Strategies
• Cornell Johnson, Center for Energy Workforce Development Director of DEI
• Keith Porta, APC Construction President
• Gayl Turk, Blaze Contracting Director of Business Development
• Stephanie Hickman, Trice Construction CEO
• Andy Kim, EVS Engineering President

Lead image: From left, Entergy’s Taiwan Brown, Salt River Project’s Erika Castro, Nicor Gas’ Tremese Davis, and Consumers Energy’s Lynn Wilson.

The "Equity in Energy" event adopted its keynote address' title "Beyond Ordinary" as its theme. A panel discussion among four diverse subcontractor leaders was inspiring as well. The CEO of Trice Construction, the Presidents of APC Construction and EVS, and the Business Development Director of Blaze Contracting all brought unique perspectives on how they and similar companies nationwide can take on increasing roles in the energy transformation.
 

PUF's Steve Mitnick: What do you do at the Center for Energy Workforce Development, or CEWD?

Cornell Johnson: I am the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and we're unique that none of our efforts are focused internally as an organization. All our efforts are focused externally on the entire industry.

Success is measured by industry impact. I have the privilege of interfacing with all the chief diversity officers and practitioners from across the energy sector for macro solutioning and maximum impact.

I love it. We're not bogged down to one vertical. As an organization, we're agnostic to the verticals of energy. We represent and service gas, power, electrification, offshore wind, RTO ISO, nuclear, contractors, you name it. We play with all of them.

We are the workforce arm of the entire alphabet soup of energy policy associations, from EEI — with whom we are in residence — AGA, APPA, NRECA, APGA, DCA, EPRI, NEI. We are the connective tissue of the industry.

PUF: What's the metric of success for CEWD? In your job, how do you know you're having an impact?

Cornell Johnson: It's workforce development numbers. Number one, IIJA tells us that there are 9.8 million jobs and a little over five million unemployed people. There are almost two jobs for every unemployed person.

Closing that gap and creating a skilled and diverse workforce is how we measure success. Also, getting energy companies across the industry to be more intentional with how they interface with the workforce board systems that are in place.

Workforce development can no longer just be something in talent acquisition. It requires strategy and tactical collaboration. It's moving the needle on those things.

Then our diversity initiatives. We are pulling the levers on making the industry a sustainably equitable home for everyone from GEDs to PhDs by partnering with community-based organizations like the National League, UNIDOS, AABE, and more.

PUF: Today, I keep hearing this word, intentionality. Give a definition for it.

Cornell Johnson: It's not going to happen by accident. We go out, we do it, and we make it happen.

We are taking specific steps for a specific outcome. We have to go beyond outputs and move from outputs to outcomes.

The output is the effort that we're putting in. Our output is, we put two thousand people of color through this line worker program as an initiative to make energy careers forward facing to communities of color.

Great, now what? What's the outcome? Where is the economic mobility? What's the sustainability? What's the driver we are putting on the community? Focusing on those outcomes is what we're doing.

PUF: When you get the chief diversity officers of the utilities and other companies together, what do they say are their biggest challenges, frustrations, and successes?

Cornell Johnson: We have our DE&I Forum coming up May 9th and 10th in Washington D.C. at EEI where CDOs will come together to discuss just that. We can't talk about challenges relevant to DEI practitioners, and not acknowledge the political climate that we're in constantly challenging the work, impact, and altruism of DEI work.

Depending on what state you're in, you can't even call it DEI. You have to get creative and call it organizational health, corporate culture, or corporate social responsibility. Political vitriol is a challenge, especially depending on where you're trying to make an impact geographically in the country.

While DEI is a business imperative supported by data, it's also the right thing to do, making it equally important as an altruistic investment by the organization. We've come exponentially further, and this industry has a phenomenal journey that should be told.

But if we look back historically, this energy was comprised of legacies like the B.U.D.S. network — meaning your brothers, uncles, and dads paved the way.

We are intentionally creating on ramps to energy through strategic partnerships with, and programs like, the Urban Energy Jobs Program, Alumbra, BHE/IBEW Stronger Together, and so much more.

PUF: The CEO of PSEG, Ralph LaRossa, used to say in speeches that a few years ago, they measured new hires and found some huge percentage had relatives already in the company.

Cornell Johnson: That's historically how the workforce has been fed, by legacies like the aforementioned B.U.D.S. network. Breaking some of the echo chambers of that has been a challenge but we've come so far and will only go further as a collective industry that is home and welcome to all.

Getting utilities to adapt and be comfortable with change, because historically the utilities are conservative. They move a little slower, and don't want to misstep. Sometimes being conservative makes us safer and predictable — which isn't always bad.

But we're in a new day and age, and we are encouraging — and helping — them to adapt some of these new policies, trends, and ways of not only doing work but approaching workforce development and community collaboration. We've come so far.

PUF: Are there best practices?

Cornell Johnson: Yes. At our DEI forum on the first day of this conference, is a closed-door meeting for chief diversity officers to talk in confidence in a safe space, with no cameras. It's about best practices, what's going well, where we are failing, and what are the pain points?

But to have peer-level conversations, confidence, and confidentiality at the same time is paramount. Yes, there are best practices, but they can ebb and flow. Again, depending on where you are geographically, and what your demographic is that you're serving.

Everybody wants to be reflective of the communities they serve. It's easy to say, "Diversity is how many Black people, Hispanic people or women do you have in your company?" 

But it's much deeper than that. It goes beyond that. I had a utility company come to me recently and ask how to grow its diversity? "We only have X amount of people of color in our workforce and we're struggling to get them."

I replied, "What's the demographic makeup of the community you're in? If it isn't heavily populated by African Americans, where are you going to get these Black people from?"

Diversity doesn't just mean go hire all the Black people. It's relative to your organization and the communities that you're in.

If your community is made up of eighty percent White people, then your workforce is going to look like that. Then look at diversity and how many women are present in leadership. Are you inclusive of the LGBTQ-plus community? What's your age diversity? What's your veteran status diversity?

There are other ways to measure diversity, so don't think you're failing at your DEI platforms because you don't have a lot of people of color.

PUF: Does it help that there's been an increasing number of top leaders who are diverse?

Cornell Johnson: Number one, it absolutely helps because we're increasing the diversity of thought leadership. Your experiences shape your thoughts and people from different backgrounds have different lived experiences, which are going to give different outputs of contributions.

You and I are going to have different experiences. We're different ages with different ethnicities. We might hail from different parts of the world.

Putting us at the table together, we'll probably come up with better solutions than if it was just five of me. Having those leaders sitting at the helm of those organizations, it's not just the impact they're having on their organization, it's the impact they're having on the industry, and communities across their service territory.

Representation is key and seeing yourself in these leadership roles lets the workforce of tomorrow know that there is space for you in this industry, and the sky's the limit.

'Equity in Energy' articles at fortnightly.com:

• Tremese Davis, Nicor Gas VP of Operations and Taiwan Brown, Entergy VP of Diversity and Workforce Strategies
• Cornell Johnson, Center for Energy Workforce Development Director of DEI
• Keith Porta, APC Construction President
• Gayl Turk, Blaze Contracting Director of Business Development
• Stephanie Hickman, Trice Construction CEO
• Andy Kim, EVS Engineering President

The "Equity in Energy" event adopted its keynote address' title "Beyond Ordinary" as its theme. A panel discussion among four diverse subcontractor leaders was inspiring as well. The CEO of Trice Construction, the Presidents of APC Construction and EVS, and the Business Development Director of Blaze Contracting all brought unique perspectives on how they and similar companies nationwide can take on increasing roles in the energy transformation.
 

PUF's Steve Mitnick: What's the secret sauce of APC Construction?

Keith Porta: Our people. The group of people that we've amassed at APC is special. I don't say that to be funny or comical. It's truly an unbelievable group of men and women that comprise the company.

They're good people, they do the right thing, whether people are watching or not. They're interested in safety and making sure that they're brothers' keepers and they all go back home the way they came to work.

From that, we've built excellent relationships with our employees. They feel respected, happy, they have time off, they have good family lives, and that then turns into their giving an excellent work product.

When we hand over an excellent work product that's safe, high quality, and it's on time or ahead of schedule, the client wants to come back to us time and time again.

PUF: Give examples of some energy and utilities projects that you're proud of.

Keith Porta: We built a substation for Entergy in Huntsville, Texas. The project went great. It took many years to make that relationship with Entergy, and once we got out there, we shined.

The project took about a year, a year and a half, to do. We were ahead of schedule, solved a lot of problems, and it was quite challenging at times based on the location of the project. It opened several other doors within that utility.

We have another group that does transformer maintenance. It's a niche market, which then also opened us up into LTC work.

It's about recruiting and maintaining the right group of people, and I believe we're the premier transformer contractor in the southeast U.S. Not because of me, but because of the men and women that comprise that group.

PUF: This conference has a focus on diversity through workforce, but also on suppliers to the energy industry. Why is this topic important?

Keith Porta: Who are utilities serving? They serve everybody in the country.

I believe they're looking to find ways to connect to the people buying their power, and what better way to do that than to find ways to connect with the people that live in those communities and to put those people to work. That's the driver for having diversity.

PUF: In two, three, four years, where is APC Construction going to be?

Keith Porta: Hopefully, the same position we're in now, just larger. Employing more people, having continued to build our reputation, and equally important, our legacy.

Also, making sure we're providing quality, safe jobs back to the people in the communities that we live and operate out of, and continue to build that relationship with the utilities so they know when they call on us, they can trust us to get the job done safely and on time.

PUF: Why do utilities like working with your company?

Keith Porta: Back to the people. Someone earlier on the panel said something that's so true, and I say this often, we're really not in the construction business, we're in the people business.

We have strong relationships with, number one, our employees, and they feel they are treated right, are respected, have a safe working environment, the right tools and equipment to do the jobs, and that makes then happy, so they turn deliver quality, safe projects. That's what the client wants.

Although the client might not want to hear it, the client is really not number one, the employee is number one. If the employee is number one, it all trickles down from there.

'Equity in Energy' articles at fortnightly.com:

• Tremese Davis, Nicor Gas VP of Operations and Taiwan Brown, Entergy VP of Diversity and Workforce Strategies
• Cornell Johnson, Center for Energy Workforce Development Director of DEI
• Keith Porta, APC Construction President
• Gayl Turk, Blaze Contracting Director of Business Development
• Stephanie Hickman, Trice Construction CEO
• Andy Kim, EVS Engineering President

The "Equity in Energy" event adopted its keynote address' title "Beyond Ordinary" as its theme. A panel discussion among four diverse subcontractor leaders was inspiring as well. The CEO of Trice Construction, the Presidents of APC Construction and EVS, and the Business Development Director of Blaze Contracting all brought unique perspectives on how they and similar companies nationwide can take on increasing roles in the energy transformation.
 

PUF's Steve Mitnick: Talk about the origin of Blaze Contracting.

Gayl Turk: That's the owner's name, spelled Blaise. Kerlin Blaise went to college at the University of Miami. He played with a championship team there.

He played for the NFL. He was a walk-on for the Detroit Lions. He won a starting position in year one. He was an offensive lineman.

During that period, every year something had to be fixed on his body. Mostly his knees. He had five operations in five years.

He started thinking about, "The NFL means not for long for me." That's the way he tells the story. He started his business while he was playing, during his off season.

His financial analyst set up a meet-and-greet at Comerica Park with different investors to help him with what he wanted to do after football. He happened to meet a gentleman from another major construction company. They were about the same age, hit it off, and became close.

That person was looking to leave where he was after seventeen years of progressing to the highest level. He wanted to start his own business.

His father said, "Why don't you two get together and start a business instead? Kerlin, you're a minority and can get a business going and take advantage of minority opportunities."

Kerlin always wanted to be his own boss and thought of construction as putting down sidewalks. That's how he started.

Kerlin played during the season while his partner Chris was trying to get work using his experience and contacts. During the first three years, he came across me representing some other client, often when Blaze thought they had a good chance of getting a contract with an owner, when he was the low bidder.

Several times he'd go in expecting a contract, but I won the contract for my client.

He watched me. He did his due diligence to find out who I was.

I met him but knew him as a football player. I was a consultant for a company that competed for the same kind of work he was doing but my client had a lot more experience.

When he found out I was available, I was planning to go back into the asphalt paving business. My dad and I owned a paving business after I left the military, and after I worked in corporate America for a short period of time many years ago.

Kerlin, Chris, and I worked out a business arrangement that continues to this day.

PUF: What does Blaze do now with the energy and utilities industry?

Gayl Turk: In the city of Detroit, Blaze performed the site work for Little Caesars Arena. The design had you walk in at the ground level and go down to get to the playing surface. It's built into a big hole. The project was in the downtown area, and we had to excavate and dispose of all the dirt out of the hole.

About a million tons of dirt had to be excavated. We had to reroute all the utilities that kept all the other businesses working. That's the water main, sanitary, and storm. And then backfill around the structure and build the site according to plans and specs.

We joint ventured with a competitor to bid the project, because of the city's requirements, the proposed accelerated schedule, and the city gave an equalization advantage for local businesses. Instead of competing against one another, we joined together to bring more value and resources in our proposal. It represented more value to the city and a better chance to meet the schedule.

Both of us already had a satisfied customer base, so our resources were allocated to contracts we had. Because of the delays due to local politics, the arena schedule was impacted making it difficult to get it finished by opening day.

We didn't get the go ahead until it was late and gave us a small window to get it done for opening day for the Pistons. Our joint venture was a major contract with big visibility. Blaze gained significant publicity and credibility due to our success.

Right now, we're working on the Gordie Howe International Bridge, point of entry on the American side. Been working on that for four years. That's about one hundred twenty million dollars for us now and still increasing. It's a design build project.

PUF: The conference is called Equity in Energy, and you were on a panel about diverse contractors. Why is this an important topic?

Gayl Turk: First, we have the capabilities to take advantage of future opportunities because of our success in the one lane we operate in. That area is mostly negotiated business development.

When you get into utilities and municipal work, that's somewhat different because of the bureaucratic processes involved. You're not dealing with an individual assigned to get the job done. Usually, it's a person who is just doing his job and going to do it the way it's written.

A lot of boilerplate language in the contracts and specifications are not conducive to getting work done in the field in the most productive and efficient way. You have to allow for that and learn how to work through that.

We have worked through it. We do some of that work, but we don't primarily focus on it.

PUF: You said on the panel you moved some high voltage transmission systems.

Gayl Turk: Yes. High voltage. The point of entry area for the bridge is a huge lay down area. They estimated the area involved to be at least fifty or sixty acres and would encompass realigning the exits off the freeway to take vehicle traffic right onto the bridge.

All that rework had to be designed. It was out for international bids. A joint venture of two international companies won the bid.

They won the bid to design, build the bridge on both points of entry for Canada and the United States, for a fixed number on a contract, and to operate over a period of twenty years. They have experience in that.

We had an interest in participating because we saw it was going to have a lot of our type of work involved. We started attending the outreach, like this event.

Until now, most of our work with Burns & McDonnell has involved the installation of high-voltage transmission lines, which is a nice job. It's high voltage electrical duct banks that are backfilled with concrete and they're underground.

They transmit high voltage electrical power from one location to another, anticipating the power needed for whatever's going to be built. The idea is to have all the major voltage that's needed to support a proposed project having already been installed in the ground for them to hook up to.

This is all underground. That's what we do. The underground piping, everything that's under the ground.

We also do the grading and the excavation for structural foundation work, which supports buildings and other structures. We do the digging, and the backfill. We install all the utilities that bring the water main, sanitary, and storm sewer, as well as electrical duct banks to the site by design.

'Equity in Energy' articles at fortnightly.com:

• Tremese Davis, Nicor Gas VP of Operations and Taiwan Brown, Entergy VP of Diversity and Workforce Strategies
• Cornell Johnson, Center for Energy Workforce Development Director of DEI
• Keith Porta, APC Construction President
• Gayl Turk, Blaze Contracting Director of Business Development
• Stephanie Hickman, Trice Construction CEO
• Andy Kim, EVS Engineering President

The "Equity in Energy" event adopted its keynote address' title "Beyond Ordinary" as its theme. A panel discussion among four diverse subcontractor leaders was inspiring as well. The CEO of Trice Construction, the Presidents of APC Construction and EVS, and the Business Development Director of Blaze Contracting all brought unique perspectives on how they and similar companies nationwide can take on increasing roles in the energy transformation.
 

PUF's Steve Mitnick: What's the secret sauce of Trice Construction?

Stephanie Hickman: The secret sauce of Trice Construction is our industry experience. I'm coming up on thirty years in the industry and on the construction side for the last seventeen.

I started my utilities career with Duquesne Light Company in Pittsburgh, and I was also at ComEd. I knew the industry, and there was a point when my family's construction business was looking to wind down. I'm second generation in the family's now fifty-seven-year-old business.

I saw an opportunity where a lot of infrastructure projects were coming online while my uncles in the business were ready to retire. I thought there was a good intersection of my experience in the industry and my family's legacy in construction to pull that together.

We've been able to do that. That's one of the secret sauces is coming as a utility industry insider into a construction business that's now multiple generations.

PUF: What's one or two jobs you have done for utilities, as a contractor or subcontractor, that you're proud of, was fun, and you like to mention?

Stephanie Hickman: We've participated in several grid modernization programs, in particular a project with Ameren Missouri. For multiple years we were rebuilding manholes.

It doesn't sound super sexy, but it's a necessity, and we were the civil contractor on the rebuild of about four hundred manholes in and around St. Louis as they were upgrading the infrastructure. That's one we're proud of because you could drive around and say, "We worked in this intersection, we were on this corner."

We've also been doing other underground distribution work with Ameren Missouri running conduits. We had our first big one run right past Busch Stadium, and we were competing with opening day for the Cardinals baseball team (Cardinals beat the Red Sox 11-6).

We had a tough schedule, and were able to manage that, building good relationships and communications with Ameren and the Cardinals to get that done in a timely way.

PUF: What's a typical day as CEO like for you?

Stephanie Hickman: There's no such thing as a typical day. In addition to being president, and CEO, I'm the CRO, which is the chief risk officer. Also, the chief relationship officer.

I spend a lot of my time focused around, are we identifying, managing, and mitigating risk? Then are we building the right relationships? All the issues that fall within those categories are important.

Sometimes I'm doing a little troubleshooting, some firefighting, and sometimes I'm dealing with suppliers. But most often, I try to prioritize my time around, is it driving the business strategy forward in terms of how we're supporting our customers and how we're building the business and the culture?

PUF: This conference has a focus on diversity through workforce, but also on suppliers to the energy industry. Why is this topic important?

Stephanie Hickman: As an African-American woman-owned business, we have a direct interest in how to build our business in a way that serves the customers �" in this case the utilities �" that is representative of the customers they serve, and that builds communities. The opportunity to grow our business means we're hiring more people.

When you hire people from underserved communities, you provide economic impact. We talk to a lot of people that we hire and say, "What you're really doing is committing an act of economic empowerment."

 When investing in training or other development opportunities to gain access to this industry of ours, we know how much work is coming, and the challenges around the workforce. Anytime we can combine serving the customer and community, building, and helping families grow economically, that's important to us. That's where I get really happy.

PUF: You're working with Ameren Missouri, Peoples Gas, and American Water. Why is it good for them to be working with your company and minority firms generally?

Stephanie Hickman: It's important for the utilities to look at smaller firms because we can deliver. Sometimes, we're a little more agile. And diverse firms hire more diverse people.

I talked about the event here and how complex this organization can be at Burns & McDonnell. It's important for them to see how they can help grow their communities, create opportunities, give people a shot, give them a chance, and know that working with a big company is a huge undertaking.

I worked for ComEd for years, and what I realized in retrospect, those first few years I was knocking on the door, but we weren't ready. We weren't ready to work with a company of that size where my family business was coming from, and we had to gain some experience to do that.

Engaging small businesses, educating small businesses, sponsoring, encouraging, mentoring, and development. I see across our customer base, opportunities to develop the business to grow scale.

Because not all of us, but many of us, like Trice, were figuring out how to scale the business in a way that we can serve more. From being a little closer to the communities, it is important as a stakeholder to share our perspectives internally, that may be able to then impact and influence.

I can go to state capitals and share, from our experience, this is what happens when smaller, mid-market companies have access to opportunities. This is what this means, what happens when you make a certain decision, how that flows through utilities to diverse suppliers, and how they can have an impact.

'Equity in Energy' articles at fortnightly.com:

• Tremese Davis, Nicor Gas VP of Operations and Taiwan Brown, Entergy VP of Diversity and Workforce Strategies
• Cornell Johnson, Center for Energy Workforce Development Director of DEI
• Keith Porta, APC Construction President
• Gayl Turk, Blaze Contracting Director of Business Development
• Stephanie Hickman, Trice Construction CEO
• Andy Kim, EVS Engineering President

The "Equity in Energy" event adopted its keynote address' title "Beyond Ordinary" as its theme. A panel discussion among four diverse subcontractor leaders was inspiring as well. The CEO of Trice Construction, the Presidents of APC Construction and EVS, and the Business Development Director of Blaze Contracting all brought unique perspectives on how they and similar companies nationwide can take on increasing roles in the energy transformation.
 

PUF's Steve Mitnick: Talk about the story behind EVS Engineering and it being a family business.

Andy Kim: It's a family business, and my father is our chairman. My mother is now retired, but she was the bookkeeper and accounting manager for twenty years.

You could say I joined forty years ago because I was the cleaner. I would go in on the weekends and clean the office, but I joined full time twenty years ago after college.

At that time, we were about twenty-five people, and all we did was civil engineering for armed forces, some local commercial work, and some highway design. But my father had the vision to realize that, if we want to grow, we had to do something beyond that.

He saw energy as a market that we could grow into. He came to some of us one day and said, "I want to do wind energy." We said, "Well, we don't know what that is, but sounds like a great idea."

We spent five years chasing wind energy, and our big break came in solar. The wind energy market was already a bit mature, so we were still too new. But when solar came about ten years ago, we were at the forefront.

We've now grown to about one hundred seventy-five people. It's been the growth of solar, battery storage, and substations.

PUF: On those projects, what does EVS do? What's your role?

Andy Kim: We are civil, electrical, structural, and geotechnical engineers. We put together the construction plan sets for solar farms, battery storage farms, and substations. We're design engineers. We don't do the construction.

PUF: Why does your company get jobs and succeed?

Andy Kim: It is belief in relationships. It's quite simple. It's building a genuine relationship with people and building off that. Build trust, get an opportunity, make sure we perform, and communicate well along the way.

PUF: On the panel, you mentioned Andrew Carnegie and how his famous book inspired you.

Andy Kim: My father and I, both. We give that book to every new employee because it's about people. We can't get our job done without great people and relationships, so that's the secret sauce.

PUF: This conference is called Equity in Energy, and it's about having more diversity in the workforce and with energy industry suppliers. Why is that important to your company, utilities, and the country?

Andy Kim: I'll steal what I heard someone at Target Corporation say about fifteen years ago as to why equity matters and supplier diversity matters. One of the best answers I've heard is, it's about businesses and workforces representing and mirroring the demographics of our country. I thought that made a lot of sense.

Look at the workforce in certain industries, it's predominantly one demographic, but that doesn't reflect the demographic of our country. That's something you can't argue with.

That's why I think it's so important. We want to reflect what the world looks like, and so, whether it be gender or race, we just want to mirror who's out there.

PUF: You're involved in booming fields. Where does EVS go in the next two, three years?

Andy Kim: Our goal is to be the national leader when it comes to solar design. We want to be known as the go-to engineering company.

It's a niche field, and we've stopped doing a lot of local, commercial work that we used to do. We gave that up. We worked for the Minnesota Vikings, and we still do a little for them, but they are the only ones now that we work for outside of the solar market.

We have become a fully focused renewable energy and energy company. Our growth is there, but the next two to three years, we see some unique niche engineering specialties within what we do, like SCADA.

There are a lot of things like that, where either you're very big and you have that, or you're specialized. We need to grow that capability.

We're also focused on efficiency and automation. We've hired people who have a background in programming, and they're looking at how to automate tasks, because a lot of what is done in solar can be repetitive.

We've already found ways to take tasks that would take someone a day, and now we're down to an hour of just data entry. That is good for us, but it's good for the whole industry.

'Equity in Energy' articles at fortnightly.com:

• Tremese Davis, Nicor Gas VP of Operations and Taiwan Brown, Entergy VP of Diversity and Workforce Strategies
• Cornell Johnson, Center for Energy Workforce Development Director of DEI
• Keith Porta, APC Construction President
• Gayl Turk, Blaze Contracting Director of Business Development
• Stephanie Hickman, Trice Construction CEO
• Andy Kim, EVS Engineering President

Decarbonization is growing, resulting in an urgent need for action to deliver on ambitious commitments, especially regarding utility infrastructure. To achieve these goals, workers are needed, and utilities along with their contractors and subcontractors, aim to help by increasing the diversity of the workforce across companies that engineer, construct, and modernize our nation's energy infrastructure.

In serving this unique role, utilities can bolster capacity to overcome their infrastructure challenges, such as the big role expected of transmission and distribution in the energy transformation, by cultivating a workforce that mirrors their communities. A part of that is helping diverse and small subcontractors learn how to get in on opportunities to compete with established companies.

To learn more about how this is taking place, Public Utilities Fortnightly went to two experts on helping the utility workforce achieve the skills and expertise necessary to meet these many construction challenges, while reflecting the diversity of the communities they serve. Burns & McDonnell's Daniel Sierra and Laron Evans have much to say on the subject.

PUF's Steve Mitnick: Daniel what is your role in your company?

Daniel Sierra: I'm the project development manager in our substation business line. I've been working at Burns & McDonnell for twelve years now and have worn a lot of different hats. I'm an electrical engineer and did substation design under Laron Evans. He was a mentor and lead on projects, so we have a close connection.

I'm also the business diversity liaison for our substation business line. That means I'm a part of any work on the substation design side that we subcontract to diverse companies, internally and externally. I work with our project management teams to make sure we're meeting the criteria we've set through Laron's leadership.

Externally, I meet with diverse business owners to get to know their companies, what their goals are, and how they have engaged with Burns & McDonnell in the past.

PUF: Laron, what is your role in your company?

Laron Evans: I was a lead engineer executing substation design and overseeing a team of engineers in 2017. Now, I'm the director of business diversity for Burns & McDonnell's transmission and distribution group. 

I'm responsible for leading the strategy to include diverse owned businesses for our transmission and distribution businesses. That houses several markets, including substation, transmission line, distribution, underground submarine cables, pipelines, and telecommunications business lines.

I work with people like Daniel and managing directors of those groups to make sure there are goals and tactics to be more inclusive of diverse-owned businesses. For the last two years, I have been focused on making sure we have more people who will champion and lead the inclusion effort for our business lines and regional operations.

We now have full-time roles in certain regions. I'm thankful I've been able to contribute to the progress of our business diversity efforts nationwide.

PUF: Daniel on an everyday basis, for big projects, how do you make this happen?

Daniel Sierra: You've got to build trust and that takes effort. That's why I love what I do.

First, we're able to talk to clients about how important business diversity is and what their goals are when it comes to diverse spending. A lot of our project teams are focused on execution and providing great quality for our clients. Our role is to talk to clients about effecting business diversity in a positive manner, and how we can help.

We talk to our client teams about how we've had a relationship with XYZ company for many years, and bridge that gap as to what an opportunity might look like for that company. We have those relationships externally with the client, but also with our subcontractors and partners to make sure it's an easy transition. I say easy but it's never easy. No projects are ever easy. 

PUF: Laron, what's a typical day like for you and why is this so important?

Laron Evans: We have several meetings internally and externally, whether strategizing with clients, supporting diverse business owners navigating our company or aligning opportunities with their capabilities. Plus, we regularly engage with several industry organizations. That generally is what the day-to-day is like.

What we do day-to-day is important for equity within our communities. That hits home because historically and currently, there are a lot of inequities.

If people are unaware of the inequities that have existed, they may develop behaviors that perpetuate them. Many of our utility clients and other industries realize there needs to be more equity across our communities. 

All our communities must be healthier and safer. Community health encompasses so many things.

It includes economics, access to healthy food, clean environments, and more. Ultimately, that is why, and it drives what we do with business diversity.

PUF: It can be hard for diverse, but small subcontractors to figure out how to get in on opportunities and have a chance to compete.

Daniel Sierra: I think of a successful story withKeith Porta, CEO of APC, and we met him at a diversity conference about three years ago. We're a large organization, and you've got to get in contact with the right folks to get opportunities. 

I decided that we were going to have a monthly meeting with Keith because we wanted to find out more about APC as there were opportunities. He got his first opportunity with Burns & McDonnell prior to our recent conference at Equity in Energy this past April.

When you get that first opportunity it's an extremely exciting time. Now, the mindset has shifted from getting that first opportunity, to how is APC going to maximize this first opportunity? Other partners of ours have had these first opportunities, and it's a critical time because depending on how the first one goes, it can lead to major future success.

We pour a lot into our partners to make sure they're successful. One of my strengths is I'm a connector. I love to connect our partners with our employee owners, and I'm honored to do that.

PUF: Laron, how do you find these people and then nurture the relationships?

Laron Evans: It involves months, even years of networking. It demands being strategic around which conferences we attend, as well as having a solid relationship with our clients, because they recommend a lot of companies. 

That's the external connection but it's having the right connection internally as well, so we can put the right people in the room to have strategic conversations with business owners and stakeholders. 

We've gotten a lot better with which conferences to attend. A few years ago, we encountered companies at some conferences we attended but their capabilities did not fit with what we were looking for in our T&D business. We had to take a step back and be more strategic regarding which conferences align with our business. 

We became more efficient with connecting the right people. Not only for market segments, but regionally too, because if a company is only operating in the south, it makes no sense to connect them with our people in Washington who are doing construction work. It is having that organizational intelligence to draw lines and connect dots.

PUF: Daniel, why is trust important in internal operations?

Daniel Sierra: It takes trust both ways. It's just like us with staffing. When we have new employee owners that come to Burns & McDonnell, there's a trust level you have to build. 

The only way you truly build trust is by taking that time and cultivating that relationship. For the majority of my career, we have self-performed engineering design tasks, because that is just the way we have done business in the past.

We ask our project managers to first understand why business diversity is important, then to understand that we will need to subcontract our typical engineering services that we provide. Those are two new ways of thinking for our employee-owners. It takes time to make those changes, and that is where my role becomes handy.

A lot of our employee-owners are used to doing engineering design in their own house. It takes time to build that trust with our partners and you must have some small wins to build that trust. We don't want to work with someone and provide a large level of scope that we know they're not going to be successful in.

There're opportunities for our partners that might be too big for them. They might not have the employees. We have to step in there at times and say, "I would not suggest this." 

We learned lessons from that. That was too big of a scope, which didn't go well for this reason. There's no perfect science but we've done this long enough where we see those hurdles coming. It's time and small wins leading to big wins. That builds trust.

PUF: With diversity in contracting, you don't want a one-off where the company does one job and goes away. Comment on that.

Laron Evans: When we are awarded one small or mid-size project, and include a company on that project, the small scale of that one project typically limits how much we can help develop that company. And if it's just one project and we're done, how can they grow? 

Additionally, for many small projects, it's often a quick turnaround for the RFP response. If we didn't already have a solid relationship with the company, it would be difficult to include them in a quick-turnaround RFP response. That's number one.

Second, if it's a small project, again, it leaves no room for development. It would be better if there were a program of small projects or a large greenfield project with several remote project sites. Something on a larger scale that would give us more time to spend with that company and help them develop.

It's challenging to do that, and that's with a small diverse business, or any business that's trying to grow. It's hard to grow and scale on one small project. If that's all we're getting once or twice a year, it's not sustainable for development.

PUF: Give an example of something that was rewarding and a success.

Daniel Sierra: My mind goes to a couple of our partners. Ultimately, our T&D, Burns & McDonnell Business Diversity Group, wants to be known as at the forefront when it comes to the AEC, Architect, Engineering, and Construction side of business diversity.

What works well when it comes to building partnerships, is when one of our partners can let us know about an opportunity that's coming that we didn't know about.

Some of our partners have better relationships with our clients that make key decisions than we do. So, when our partners recommend that they would want to work with us on an opportunity that they might not be able to take on themselves, I consider that a huge win. Some of our partners go a step further, make the introduction, and set up a meeting to see if we can tackle this together.

The goal is that minority-owned businesses should be able to grow so big that they become competitive for these opportunities and become the next Burns & McDonnell. That's ultimately what we want, because we understand the impact that would have on the community.

We've experienced that some of our partners could be considered competitors in a certain market. I love to see that because then I know they're winning and are going to do great things.

PUF: Laron, how about you?

Laron Evans: I'll mention two. I can talk about numbers. In our transmission business, we spent over ninety million with diverse-owned businesses last year. That's great. We spent over two hundred million, as a company, with diverse businesses last year.

What's rewarding is when clients, diverse businesses, and various industry organizations, are thinking of who they can partner with, talk to, or lean on for a variety of things in this space, and think of Burns & McDonnell.

In the past three months, I can think of three utility clients, who have reached out to us to say, "Hey, let's do this. Let's partner on this." Also, Daniel and another one of our liaisons, Qilin Heaton, are leading an outstanding executive coaching program with a few diverse businesses, and some of our leadership.

All the owners of those companies have reached out about challenges they're dealing with as a company. They're leaning on us to help them solve those challenges. That has been rewarding, that this is a strong relationship business.

It's that trust that we've developed between one another. That is rewarding because, if that piece is missing, everything else is lost. But when that piece is firm, we will navigate challenges and enjoy successes together.