Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
iHeartMedia Presents CEOs you should know.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm John Denkle, founder and CEO of Dnkele Business Development
and former president publisher of the Baltimore Business Journal. This
is iHeartRadio CEOs you should Know and I'm here today
with Tamla Olivier, President and CEO of BG. Welcome Tamla,
and thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Searan. Thanks so much for having me on the show.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
We really appreciate you being here and looking forward to
our conversation. I found be good to just begin by
getting to know you a little bit and the organization
a little bit more. Of course, many of our listenership
are familiar with Bambergafs of Electric, but could you give
us a brief rundown of the organization and the main
services you provide to your customers.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Sure. We are company that has been in Maryland, serving
Marylanders for over two hundred years. We are actually the
first gas utility in the United States. We service one
point three million electric customers and seven hundred thousand gas
customers every single day with safe and reliable power.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Excellent, and what's your mission?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Our mission, again is always centered around our customers and
providing safe and reliable power to our customers, and lately,
given the surging prices of energy and supply cost, it's
also around affordable energy to our customers.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah, actually was one of the
questions when they ask you, you know, given the economy
right now, friighting costs, you know, what programs do you
offer your clients to help them with their energy bills?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well, several different programs. I think I'll start with given
that we are in the DMV and have been significantly
impacted by furloughs federal jobs going away in our region,
we have programs that extend payment times for federal employees.
(01:58):
We also have payment arrangements for federal employees as well
as all of our customers. We also offer energy efficiency
programs so that customers are well informed and what they
can do to better manage their energy. As well, we
do energy audits through Empower Maryland. We also routinely reach
(02:21):
out to customers that might be having problems supporting payment
of their bills to figure out what we can do
to support them, and most recently in July, we actually
rolled out the Customer Release on which was fifteen million
dollars to BG customers to assist them with their funds.
(02:41):
That actually helped over thirty thousand Maryland residents.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Wow, that's awesome, Thank you for sharing that. As the
new CEO of VGMY we are your biggest priorities as
we wrap up twenty twenty five and start thinking about
twenty twenty six, Well, the.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Biggest fund specifically for Maryland is related to energy security.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
One.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I don't think a lot of folks in the area
recognize that although we have gas and electric in our name,
we actually do not produce any gas or electric. We're
like door dash, so we just bring it to your door.
But in the state of Maryland, forty percent of the
state's power is actually imported in from other states Pennsylvania, Virginia,
(03:27):
West Virginia. And because we're importing so much power into
the state, because we're not producing that power in state,
we are paying a premium to suppliers for that power.
And what that looks like, and I'll just give you
an example. In twenty twenty three, our customers were paying
(03:49):
roughly twenty eight dollars a megawat day. They're currently paying
over three hundred dollars a megawat day for the same commodity.
It's not different, it's not special, it's the same thing
they will getting in twenty twenty three. The difference is
is there's scarcity and supply specifically in the state of Maryland,
and so our customers are paying that higher premium and
(04:13):
that shows up on their BG bills. A lot of
people also don't know that when they say the supply
portion that bill, that money goes directly to the folks
who are actually generating that gas and electrics. BG doesn't
see one cent of it. And so we have been
having a lot of conversations navigating for our customers with
(04:34):
the state to say, you have got to do something
about generating power in the state to bring down our
customers bills.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
One of the questions I was going to ask you too,
is around you know, artificial intelligence and how it's you know,
impacting the business and you know, how you might be
using aid for service delivery. But you know, with all
these you know, the data center that we're hearing about
in Virginia and other states coming up to help with
(05:05):
the influx of the power we're going to need for
you know, artificial intelligence, I imagine you know that's gonna
come into play even more and asking for Maryland to
to do what you just talked about.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, you you are absolutely spot on. I think you know,
we are dealing with more and more technology. We have
data centers coming into the regions, and what I would
say is, even without those data centers coming into the
to the region, we are at a deficit as it
relates to the amount of electrons making their way into Maryland.
(05:41):
And because of that, you know, essentially Maryland moved away
from fossil fuels too quickly, maybe overly optimistic that renewables
were going to come online quickly, and I think we
all wanted renewables to come online quickly. That didn't materialize.
We had a wind product that we you know, a
project that was started by the state in twenty seventeen
(06:04):
that never took off the ground. But when you depleted
those fossil fuels and that went away all of a sudden,
you have this forty percent deficit in the state. And
this as an example, Brandon Shores, owned by Talent Energy,
basically said hey, we're we're gonna shut down our plant,
and the Regional Transmission operators said, you can't shut down
(06:27):
because Maryland is in a bad situation already, and so
now our customers see a four dollars payment on their
bill that goes to Talent Energy. We're paying them fifteen
million dollars a month. Maryland customers are paying Talent Energy
fifteen million a month to run and through the end
of twenty eight when we can build a new transmission
(06:51):
line to get more electrons into the state so that
we don't run into brownouse and blackouts. And I will
tell you you twenty twenty seven, the regional transmission operator
is saying that Baltimore and the surrounding counties will have
rolling blackouts and brown outs because of the lack of
(07:12):
power generated in the state.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, wow, Yeah, that's that's that's crazy. Either typical customer
doesn't hear about that, doesn't know about that, But so
I appreciate you really sharing that. That's that's uh, yeah,
that's that's really interesting. Going back to the kind of
the business question in the sense of how how you
(07:34):
all are using artificial intelligence to improved service and delivery.
Is that a big kind of push would you say
over the next you know, year or two years, And
I'm sure you're using you know, artificial intelligence now, but
as it becomes you know, as you start to use that,
I guess more, are you seeing that making a play
(07:57):
into other parts of the organization. Oh?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Absolutely, i'd say in every facet of the organization. On
the customer side, how do we leverage AI to do
some of the more i'd say day to day operations
to support our customers so that our customer care reps
can spend time with the more meaningful work that they're
(08:23):
dealing with customers in those touch points. We also leverage
technology on our operations systems to isolate alogies and so
instead of an outage being calls for fifteen hundred customers,
we have distribution automation technology that might isolate that average
(08:45):
so that only fifty customers are being impacted. We are
also leveraging jump thrones, so before when we had to
pay companies to run helicopters over our transmission line, we
can actually leverage those drones to do those runs over
the transmission line to identify any potential issues. In addition,
(09:08):
they're collecting data as they do those runs over the line,
and then we leverage that analytics, that predictive analytics to
get in front of potential failures on some of our equipment.
So AI and technology are front and center for us
as we look to become more effective, more cost effective,
(09:30):
more productive and create you know, a higher level of
customer experience.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah, that's great, great, thank you for sharing that. You know,
VG has such a long history of supporting many philanthropic
initiatives around the state and Baltimore, and you know, as
the THEO, will you be changing a that or do
you have any specific priorities that you'll be supporting in
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, what I would say is our corporate giving and
being really involved in our communities are I mean, the
bottom line is we have thirty five hundred employees and
they live and work in these communities. So these are
our families. There are communities, and so that is just
who we are at the core. Ironically, we just heard
(10:18):
from the BBJ a couple of weeks ago that for
the second year in the row, we were name number
one for corporate giving in the region. And we are
proud of that because it just means one we have
we have employees who are deeply committed and passionate about
(10:40):
their communities and serving and giving back, and that is
just the testament to our employees.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Yeah, that's awesome, that's awesome. Thank you to change things
up a little bit. Tell us a little bit about
your your personal background. How you got to this point
in your career.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I don't know. As a child, if I said I
would be running a ut I think as a child,
I thought I was going to be an attorney, and
I think white has twist and turns. The first twenty
five years of my career were actually in human resources, manufacturing,
and financial services. But one day when I had the
(11:18):
opportunity to meet with several leaders in the business here,
they were so excited about the industry, about energy, how
dynamic it was. I don't know if they ever would
have predicted it was going to be this dynamic, but
they were so excited about the industry. I was like,
(11:39):
am I getting excited about gas and electric right now?
And the fact of the matter was I was. And
so they got me hooklined with Thinker. So moved into
the organization, and then at one point moved over to
run our home services business, and then moved to BG
in the customer operations role. So customer is near and
(12:01):
dear to my heart. Moved to our Pepco Holdings, one
of our sister utilities as the COO. And now I'm
back here at BG, which is amazing. It's like a
homecoming awesome.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
I love it, I love it. Thank you. I appreciate
sharing all that now. I love talking about leadership on
the show, and so I wanted to ask you a
few questions around that. How would you describe your leadership style?
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I would say my leadership style is really foundationally built
on relationships and connections. I feel like, if you can't
connect with an individual, I don't care who they are,
what they do, you are completely missing the boot. And
then I would say, beyond the relationships and connections, it
(12:51):
is about being genuine and direct. I don't think people
should have to guess it what you're saying after talking
to you for thirty minutes. They shouldn't need a decoder
to figure out what it is you're trying to say.
So pretty direct style. But connections and relationships is probably
the thing that drives me most.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, that's interesting. I think those two styles go well together, right, So,
because if you have the relationship and the connection and
your approachable and people feel comfortable, you know, talking to
you and you know, on a personal level, you know,
being direct is not as you know, some people kind
of take being direct as a little harsh and stuff.
That if you've built the relationships and the communication and
(13:36):
you know your your your brand out there in the
in the community and with your your team, is that
of the you know, relationship oriented and wanting to listen.
Being direct is super positive thing because you're right, people
people want to know where they stand. They don't want
to have to guess when they are talking to you
or you think they're thinking about them. So that's pretty interesting.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah, and you know, I think you're bottle one. You know,
no one wants to feel like they're being sold a
bill of goods for anything. And so if you don't
have the connections and relationships and you're not being genuine
in your communications style, I think it doesn't lead to
a trusting relationship, which to me is absolutely critical.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I had an experience early on
in my career and managing people where this managing an
office outside of the home office and he would come
up maybe once a month to say hi to everybody thing.
And I don't know how he did it, but when
he walked to the office. He knew every one of
(14:43):
my employees' names and I to them and I just
thought that was so powerful because he was able to
they only saw him once a month or not, maybe
not even that, he connected with them, He communicated, he
was building. These people wanted to work for him. So
it's such a great great to have. That's that's commendable.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
No, and that's a great story. Now I'm you know
the memory side. I might not remember your name, but
I'll remember every story you told me about your kids,
your wife, your partner, your dog, your cat. I'm gonna
have to practice the name piece. John.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Yeah, I'm the same. I feel like I have a
big network in Baltimore and I know a lot of
people thought, oh man, I get a person all the time.
Oh I'm terrible with names, and I shouldn't be, but
but I am so so Resilience it seems to be
kind of the buzzword these days especially Wow, this year
has been pretty interesting. What does resilience mean to you
(15:42):
and how do you demonstrate that leading your team?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah? So I would say I look at that one
twofold resiliency as it relates to our infrastructure, our infrastructure,
our systems and making sure we are making the right
investments to one make sure we have a safe and
reliable grid. I think, you know, being a two hundred
(16:06):
plus year old company, we have one hundred year old
Maine in the ground, so we have some really old infrastructure.
We have substations that are eighty years old, and when
they were built eighty years ago, we're never intended to
carry the amount of load that're currently carrying. So really
making sure we have a resilient grid. And we just
(16:29):
got the twenty twenty four benchmarking results for reliability across
the country and BGE was number five and twenty twenty
three and twenty twenty four, we are now the fourth
most reliable utility in the entire country.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Awesome, congratulations, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
And then I would say I would say resiliency as
it relates to.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Our people.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Like I said, thirty five hundred employees working hard for
customers and our communities every single day, and every single
day they are faced with various challenges, whether it's a storm,
whether it's weather, whether it's figuring out a very difficult
issue or fault on the system, whether it's determining what
(17:21):
innovative solutions we need to put on our system, and
then as we look to create affordable energy for our customers,
we also look at the things that we're able to
control internally, and so our teams are really being asked
to dig into continuous improvement, efficiency, cost effectiveness every single
(17:42):
day and so very very resilient team of folks working
hard for Maryland every day.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
That's great, that's great. Thank you. What advice would you
give other CEOs that are trying to manage their teams
in these kind of interesting times share, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
The thing that we have been focused on first and
foremost is really one around specifically working as one team.
I think we have experts across this organization and it
gets very easy to just focus on your piece of
the puzzle. And because it is so dynamic right now
(18:23):
what we're dealing with across the energy industry, you cannot
just be focused in your vertical So you have to
work horizontally as one team or we're not going to
be able to figure out some of these hard challenges
that we're going to be faced with now and over
the next five to ten years. So the one team concept,
continue to focus on that, and then also really driving
(18:46):
a high performance culture. I think, you know, given everything
we have on our plates, you can't show up and
give fifty percent and think that that's going to be
enough because somebody else is been doing a hunt unred
and fifty percent because you're not pulling your weight. So
I think driving that high performance culture. And then the
(19:07):
last piece is, given what we're seeing in the DMV
right now, it is absolutely critical that we are connected
to our communities in every way. We're partnering schools right
now that are Title I schools that have food pantries
and they are not able to keep those food pantries
(19:27):
full because of the need. So it speaks to the
need in the region that we're seeing and we need
to play our parts.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, I love that, Thank you, Thank you. That's great advice.
Could you want to talk about kind of the labor force,
because it's changed a lot this year. Could you give
us maybe your insights or your opinions on like kind
of the challenges or opportunities you're seeing in hiring and
maybe even just the overall labor force you're seeing. What
(19:56):
kind of trends are you being out there? You all
employ a lot of people, and I imagine or keep
on top of that kind of stuff. So just kind
of curious what maybe your insights are there.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Yeah. I know in the DMV area we've seen unemployment
like up twenty percent, which is significant. I would say
with us specifically, the roles that have been really challenging
as we think about some of the large scale projects
we have on the system. Project managers, engineers are really
(20:28):
difficult to get. And then we are partnering with high schools.
Every summer we have high schoolers in to really introduce
them to the industry because we're not seeing as many
young folks go into the trades, which is absolutely critical,
(20:49):
and so sometimes we are so focused in high school
on getting people into degree programs, but that's not always
the path for everyone. And there are careers here at
BG and across the energy industry that we want people
to consider, and so being able to introduce students to
(21:10):
those careers is top of mind for it.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, I love that because I'm a huge proponent of
that too. I agree with you. I think the trades
are unfortunately often overlooked, and you know, I think a
lot of that comes down to the parents too, and
making sure that they are teaching their kids about all
of the opportunities out there, not just you know, for
your degrees are great, you know, if you want to
(21:35):
go get your master's in PG, great, but it's not
for everybody. And I think there are a lot of great,
you know, trade careers out there that people can make
a darkwood living, you know, doing that and maybe eventually
starting their own businesses and things like that. So I
love that to hear that you all are partnering with
the high schools and you know, communicating that to these
(21:57):
students because I think there's such an out there.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
No, I agree one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
So what gets you excited about the future of the gens, Well.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
I think the thing that gets me excited is, you know,
Maryland is at a pivotal point right now, so I
think it is primed and possibilities, but those possibilities really
are highly dependent on having reliable energy. So really excited
(22:30):
about the economic development and growth that the city as
well as the surrounding counties are poised for, and excited
about the state being in a position to solve for
generation in the states. Generation in the state that will
one bring our customer calls down as it relates to
(22:53):
the supply of gas and electricity as well. When you
have strong infrastructure, when you have a strong energy solutions
in the state, and we have safe and reliable power
in the state, then you have large businesses that want
(23:14):
to be here. I think we have seen some businesses
going to Virginia and other states because who wants to
come to a state that could be experiencing brownouts and blackouts.
So really excited about partnering with the state to be
part of the solution as we think about what generation
(23:35):
looks like locally, so that Maryland can own its energy destiny.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
I love that. I love that. So conversely, what keeps
up at night.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Well, I would say safety. Safety. Safety. Again, we have
folks across BG who do incredibly dangerous jobs each and
every day to make sure each one of us is
able to live comfortably in our home. And so every day,
you know, at the start of every day, at the
(24:06):
start of every meeting, safety is what is top of
mind for us.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
It's important that I am sending every single person that
comes here each day back to their family and loved
ones the same way they came into work.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah, yeah, thank you. I appreciate sharing that So to
wrap things upload, is there anything else you'd like our
listeners to know about you and DG?
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Again, I'm just focused on my team. I think there
has been a lot of misrepresentation, whether it's been media
or print or social media about what DG is responsible
for relatives to high bills and what we're not and
(24:48):
I called a driving high bills, Yet no one is
talking about that. They're talking about, you know, the investments
that we're making in the grid, which by the way,
distribution for example, the Stride program, The investments we've made
and aging infrastructure in our gas system have reduced the
(25:09):
number of hazardous gas leaks by over forty percent. This
is luck that has to take place to make sure
that our customers are safe, our employees are safe, and
communities are safe. So really, you know, just want to
stress the fact that thirty five hundred employees out there
every single day working very very hard to keep communities safe,
(25:34):
keep customers safe, and make sure that we are offering
safe and reliable energy. And I know we probably take
that for granted because we come home, we flip on
our life and it just happens every single time. But
there's a machine behind this and those are those thirty
five hundred committed, passionate employees and team members who are
(25:55):
making that happen every single day.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
I love it. I love it. Thank you, and lastly,
just tell us how to find more information about d
G YEP.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I would say, would direct you to BG dot com,
where you can get a wealth of information on energy efficiency,
on budget billing, on some of our payment programs to
support you and your family each day.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Well, thank you so much, Tamba. I really appreciate you
taking the time today. It was great to talk to
you and learn more about VG and you know, all
the things that you all are doing there to keep
the lights on and also bring some of those points
to the forefront about what's happening here in Maryland. So
we really appreciate that. And yeah, thank you so much
(26:43):
for your time.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
No, John, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time.
And hopefully we'll get to meet face to face here soon.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I look forward to that. Thank you so much, Tambile.
This has been iHeartMedia CEOs.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
You should know
iHeartMedia Presents CEOs you should know.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm John Denkle, founder and CEO of Dnkele Business Development
and former president publisher of the Baltimore Business Journal. This
is iHeartRadio CEOs you should Know and I'm here today
with Tamla Olivier, President and CEO of BG. Welcome Tamla,
and thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Searan. Thanks so much for having me on the show.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
We really appreciate you being here and looking forward to
our conversation. I found be good to just begin by
getting to know you a little bit and the organization
a little bit more. Of course, many of our listenership
are familiar with Bambergafs of Electric, but could you give
us a brief rundown of the organization and the main
services you provide to your customers.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Sure. We are company that has been in Maryland, serving
Marylanders for over two hundred years. We are actually the
first gas utility in the United States. We service one
point three million electric customers and seven hundred thousand gas
customers every single day with safe and reliable power.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Excellent, and what's your mission?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Our mission, again is always centered around our customers and
providing safe and reliable power to our customers, and lately,
given the surging prices of energy and supply cost, it's
also around affordable energy to our customers.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah, actually was one of the
questions when they ask you, you know, given the economy
right now, friighting costs, you know, what programs do you
offer your clients to help them with their energy bills?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well, several different programs. I think I'll start with given
that we are in the DMV and have been significantly
impacted by furloughs federal jobs going away in our region,
we have programs that extend payment times for federal employees.
(01:58):
We also have payment arrangements for federal employees as well
as all of our customers. We also offer energy efficiency
programs so that customers are well informed and what they
can do to better manage their energy. As well, we
do energy audits through Empower Maryland. We also routinely reach
(02:21):
out to customers that might be having problems supporting payment
of their bills to figure out what we can do
to support them, and most recently in July, we actually
rolled out the Customer Release on which was fifteen million
dollars to BG customers to assist them with their funds.
(02:41):
That actually helped over thirty thousand Maryland residents.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Wow, that's awesome, Thank you for sharing that. As the
new CEO of VGMY we are your biggest priorities as
we wrap up twenty twenty five and start thinking about
twenty twenty six, Well, the.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Biggest fund specifically for Maryland is related to energy security.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
One.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I don't think a lot of folks in the area
recognize that although we have gas and electric in our name,
we actually do not produce any gas or electric. We're
like door dash, so we just bring it to your door.
But in the state of Maryland, forty percent of the
state's power is actually imported in from other states Pennsylvania, Virginia,
(03:27):
West Virginia. And because we're importing so much power into
the state, because we're not producing that power in state,
we are paying a premium to suppliers for that power.
And what that looks like, and I'll just give you
an example. In twenty twenty three, our customers were paying
(03:49):
roughly twenty eight dollars a megawat day. They're currently paying
over three hundred dollars a megawat day for the same commodity.
It's not different, it's not special, it's the same thing
they will getting in twenty twenty three. The difference is
is there's scarcity and supply specifically in the state of Maryland,
and so our customers are paying that higher premium and
(04:13):
that shows up on their BG bills. A lot of
people also don't know that when they say the supply
portion that bill, that money goes directly to the folks
who are actually generating that gas and electrics. BG doesn't
see one cent of it. And so we have been
having a lot of conversations navigating for our customers with
(04:34):
the state to say, you have got to do something
about generating power in the state to bring down our
customers bills.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
One of the questions I was going to ask you too,
is around you know, artificial intelligence and how it's you know,
impacting the business and you know, how you might be
using aid for service delivery. But you know, with all
these you know, the data center that we're hearing about
in Virginia and other states coming up to help with
(05:05):
the influx of the power we're going to need for
you know, artificial intelligence, I imagine you know that's gonna
come into play even more and asking for Maryland to
to do what you just talked about.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, you you are absolutely spot on. I think you know,
we are dealing with more and more technology. We have
data centers coming into the regions, and what I would
say is, even without those data centers coming into the
to the region, we are at a deficit as it
relates to the amount of electrons making their way into Maryland.
(05:41):
And because of that, you know, essentially Maryland moved away
from fossil fuels too quickly, maybe overly optimistic that renewables
were going to come online quickly, and I think we
all wanted renewables to come online quickly. That didn't materialize.
We had a wind product that we you know, a
project that was started by the state in twenty seventeen
(06:04):
that never took off the ground. But when you depleted
those fossil fuels and that went away all of a sudden,
you have this forty percent deficit in the state. And
this as an example, Brandon Shores, owned by Talent Energy,
basically said hey, we're we're gonna shut down our plant,
and the Regional Transmission operators said, you can't shut down
(06:27):
because Maryland is in a bad situation already, and so
now our customers see a four dollars payment on their
bill that goes to Talent Energy. We're paying them fifteen
million dollars a month. Maryland customers are paying Talent Energy
fifteen million a month to run and through the end
of twenty eight when we can build a new transmission
(06:51):
line to get more electrons into the state so that
we don't run into brownouse and blackouts. And I will
tell you you twenty twenty seven, the regional transmission operator
is saying that Baltimore and the surrounding counties will have
rolling blackouts and brown outs because of the lack of
(07:12):
power generated in the state.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, wow, Yeah, that's that's that's crazy. Either typical customer
doesn't hear about that, doesn't know about that, But so
I appreciate you really sharing that. That's that's uh, yeah,
that's that's really interesting. Going back to the kind of
the business question in the sense of how how you
(07:34):
all are using artificial intelligence to improved service and delivery.
Is that a big kind of push would you say
over the next you know, year or two years, And
I'm sure you're using you know, artificial intelligence now, but
as it becomes you know, as you start to use that,
I guess more, are you seeing that making a play
(07:57):
into other parts of the organization. Oh?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Absolutely, i'd say in every facet of the organization. On
the customer side, how do we leverage AI to do
some of the more i'd say day to day operations
to support our customers so that our customer care reps
can spend time with the more meaningful work that they're
(08:23):
dealing with customers in those touch points. We also leverage
technology on our operations systems to isolate alogies and so
instead of an outage being calls for fifteen hundred customers,
we have distribution automation technology that might isolate that average
(08:45):
so that only fifty customers are being impacted. We are
also leveraging jump thrones, so before when we had to
pay companies to run helicopters over our transmission line, we
can actually leverage those drones to do those runs over
the transmission line to identify any potential issues. In addition,
(09:08):
they're collecting data as they do those runs over the line,
and then we leverage that analytics, that predictive analytics to
get in front of potential failures on some of our equipment.
So AI and technology are front and center for us
as we look to become more effective, more cost effective,
(09:30):
more productive and create you know, a higher level of
customer experience.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Yeah, that's great, great, thank you for sharing that. You know,
VG has such a long history of supporting many philanthropic
initiatives around the state and Baltimore, and you know, as
the THEO, will you be changing a that or do
you have any specific priorities that you'll be supporting in
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, what I would say is our corporate giving and
being really involved in our communities are I mean, the
bottom line is we have thirty five hundred employees and
they live and work in these communities. So these are
our families. There are communities, and so that is just
who we are at the core. Ironically, we just heard
(10:18):
from the BBJ a couple of weeks ago that for
the second year in the row, we were name number
one for corporate giving in the region. And we are
proud of that because it just means one we have
we have employees who are deeply committed and passionate about
(10:40):
their communities and serving and giving back, and that is
just the testament to our employees.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Yeah, that's awesome, that's awesome. Thank you to change things
up a little bit. Tell us a little bit about
your your personal background. How you got to this point
in your career.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I don't know. As a child, if I said I
would be running a ut I think as a child,
I thought I was going to be an attorney, and
I think white has twist and turns. The first twenty
five years of my career were actually in human resources, manufacturing,
and financial services. But one day when I had the
(11:18):
opportunity to meet with several leaders in the business here,
they were so excited about the industry, about energy, how
dynamic it was. I don't know if they ever would
have predicted it was going to be this dynamic, but
they were so excited about the industry. I was like,
(11:39):
am I getting excited about gas and electric right now?
And the fact of the matter was I was. And
so they got me hooklined with Thinker. So moved into
the organization, and then at one point moved over to
run our home services business, and then moved to BG
in the customer operations role. So customer is near and
(12:01):
dear to my heart. Moved to our Pepco Holdings, one
of our sister utilities as the COO. And now I'm
back here at BG, which is amazing. It's like a
homecoming awesome.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
I love it, I love it. Thank you. I appreciate
sharing all that now. I love talking about leadership on
the show, and so I wanted to ask you a
few questions around that. How would you describe your leadership style?
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I would say my leadership style is really foundationally built
on relationships and connections. I feel like, if you can't
connect with an individual, I don't care who they are,
what they do, you are completely missing the boot. And
then I would say, beyond the relationships and connections, it
(12:51):
is about being genuine and direct. I don't think people
should have to guess it what you're saying after talking
to you for thirty minutes. They shouldn't need a decoder
to figure out what it is you're trying to say.
So pretty direct style. But connections and relationships is probably
the thing that drives me most.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, that's interesting. I think those two styles go well together, right, So,
because if you have the relationship and the connection and
your approachable and people feel comfortable, you know, talking to
you and you know, on a personal level, you know,
being direct is not as you know, some people kind
of take being direct as a little harsh and stuff.
That if you've built the relationships and the communication and
(13:36):
you know your your your brand out there in the
in the community and with your your team, is that
of the you know, relationship oriented and wanting to listen.
Being direct is super positive thing because you're right, people
people want to know where they stand. They don't want
to have to guess when they are talking to you
or you think they're thinking about them. So that's pretty interesting.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah, and you know, I think you're bottle one. You know,
no one wants to feel like they're being sold a
bill of goods for anything. And so if you don't
have the connections and relationships and you're not being genuine
in your communications style, I think it doesn't lead to
a trusting relationship, which to me is absolutely critical.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I had an experience early on
in my career and managing people where this managing an
office outside of the home office and he would come
up maybe once a month to say hi to everybody thing.
And I don't know how he did it, but when
he walked to the office. He knew every one of
(14:43):
my employees' names and I to them and I just
thought that was so powerful because he was able to
they only saw him once a month or not, maybe
not even that, he connected with them, He communicated, he
was building. These people wanted to work for him. So
it's such a great great to have. That's that's commendable.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
No, and that's a great story. Now I'm you know
the memory side. I might not remember your name, but
I'll remember every story you told me about your kids,
your wife, your partner, your dog, your cat. I'm gonna
have to practice the name piece. John.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Yeah, I'm the same. I feel like I have a
big network in Baltimore and I know a lot of
people thought, oh man, I get a person all the time.
Oh I'm terrible with names, and I shouldn't be, but
but I am so so Resilience it seems to be
kind of the buzzword these days especially Wow, this year
has been pretty interesting. What does resilience mean to you
(15:42):
and how do you demonstrate that leading your team?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah? So I would say I look at that one
twofold resiliency as it relates to our infrastructure, our infrastructure,
our systems and making sure we are making the right
investments to one make sure we have a safe and
reliable grid. I think, you know, being a two hundred
(16:06):
plus year old company, we have one hundred year old
Maine in the ground, so we have some really old infrastructure.
We have substations that are eighty years old, and when
they were built eighty years ago, we're never intended to
carry the amount of load that're currently carrying. So really
making sure we have a resilient grid. And we just
(16:29):
got the twenty twenty four benchmarking results for reliability across
the country and BGE was number five and twenty twenty
three and twenty twenty four, we are now the fourth
most reliable utility in the entire country.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Awesome, congratulations, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
And then I would say I would say resiliency as
it relates to.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Our people.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Like I said, thirty five hundred employees working hard for
customers and our communities every single day, and every single
day they are faced with various challenges, whether it's a storm,
whether it's weather, whether it's figuring out a very difficult
issue or fault on the system, whether it's determining what
(17:21):
innovative solutions we need to put on our system, and
then as we look to create affordable energy for our customers,
we also look at the things that we're able to
control internally, and so our teams are really being asked
to dig into continuous improvement, efficiency, cost effectiveness every single
(17:42):
day and so very very resilient team of folks working
hard for Maryland every day.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
That's great, that's great. Thank you. What advice would you
give other CEOs that are trying to manage their teams
in these kind of interesting times share, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
The thing that we have been focused on first and
foremost is really one around specifically working as one team.
I think we have experts across this organization and it
gets very easy to just focus on your piece of
the puzzle. And because it is so dynamic right now
(18:23):
what we're dealing with across the energy industry, you cannot
just be focused in your vertical So you have to
work horizontally as one team or we're not going to
be able to figure out some of these hard challenges
that we're going to be faced with now and over
the next five to ten years. So the one team concept,
continue to focus on that, and then also really driving
(18:46):
a high performance culture. I think, you know, given everything
we have on our plates, you can't show up and
give fifty percent and think that that's going to be
enough because somebody else is been doing a hunt unred
and fifty percent because you're not pulling your weight. So
I think driving that high performance culture. And then the
(19:07):
last piece is, given what we're seeing in the DMV
right now, it is absolutely critical that we are connected
to our communities in every way. We're partnering schools right
now that are Title I schools that have food pantries
and they are not able to keep those food pantries
(19:27):
full because of the need. So it speaks to the
need in the region that we're seeing and we need
to play our parts.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, I love that, Thank you, Thank you. That's great advice.
Could you want to talk about kind of the labor force,
because it's changed a lot this year. Could you give
us maybe your insights or your opinions on like kind
of the challenges or opportunities you're seeing in hiring and
maybe even just the overall labor force you're seeing. What
(19:56):
kind of trends are you being out there? You all
employ a lot of people, and I imagine or keep
on top of that kind of stuff. So just kind
of curious what maybe your insights are there.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Yeah. I know in the DMV area we've seen unemployment
like up twenty percent, which is significant. I would say
with us specifically, the roles that have been really challenging
as we think about some of the large scale projects
we have on the system. Project managers, engineers are really
(20:28):
difficult to get. And then we are partnering with high schools.
Every summer we have high schoolers in to really introduce
them to the industry because we're not seeing as many
young folks go into the trades, which is absolutely critical,
(20:49):
and so sometimes we are so focused in high school
on getting people into degree programs, but that's not always
the path for everyone. And there are careers here at
BG and across the energy industry that we want people
to consider, and so being able to introduce students to
(21:10):
those careers is top of mind for it.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, I love that because I'm a huge proponent of
that too. I agree with you. I think the trades
are unfortunately often overlooked, and you know, I think a
lot of that comes down to the parents too, and
making sure that they are teaching their kids about all
of the opportunities out there, not just you know, for
your degrees are great, you know, if you want to
(21:35):
go get your master's in PG, great, but it's not
for everybody. And I think there are a lot of great,
you know, trade careers out there that people can make
a darkwood living, you know, doing that and maybe eventually
starting their own businesses and things like that. So I
love that to hear that you all are partnering with
the high schools and you know, communicating that to these
(21:57):
students because I think there's such an out there.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
No, I agree one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
So what gets you excited about the future of the gens, Well.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
I think the thing that gets me excited is, you know,
Maryland is at a pivotal point right now, so I
think it is primed and possibilities, but those possibilities really
are highly dependent on having reliable energy. So really excited
(22:30):
about the economic development and growth that the city as
well as the surrounding counties are poised for, and excited
about the state being in a position to solve for
generation in the states. Generation in the state that will
one bring our customer calls down as it relates to
(22:53):
the supply of gas and electricity as well. When you
have strong infrastructure, when you have a strong energy solutions
in the state, and we have safe and reliable power
in the state, then you have large businesses that want
(23:14):
to be here. I think we have seen some businesses
going to Virginia and other states because who wants to
come to a state that could be experiencing brownouts and blackouts.
So really excited about partnering with the state to be
part of the solution as we think about what generation
(23:35):
looks like locally, so that Maryland can own its energy destiny.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
I love that. I love that. So conversely, what keeps
up at night.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Well, I would say safety. Safety. Safety. Again, we have
folks across BG who do incredibly dangerous jobs each and
every day to make sure each one of us is
able to live comfortably in our home. And so every day,
you know, at the start of every day, at the
(24:06):
start of every meeting, safety is what is top of
mind for us.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
It's important that I am sending every single person that
comes here each day back to their family and loved
ones the same way they came into work.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah, yeah, thank you. I appreciate sharing that So to
wrap things upload, is there anything else you'd like our
listeners to know about you and DG?
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Again, I'm just focused on my team. I think there
has been a lot of misrepresentation, whether it's been media
or print or social media about what DG is responsible
for relatives to high bills and what we're not and
(24:48):
I called a driving high bills, Yet no one is
talking about that. They're talking about, you know, the investments
that we're making in the grid, which by the way,
distribution for example, the Stride program, The investments we've made
and aging infrastructure in our gas system have reduced the
(25:09):
number of hazardous gas leaks by over forty percent. This
is luck that has to take place to make sure
that our customers are safe, our employees are safe, and
communities are safe. So really, you know, just want to
stress the fact that thirty five hundred employees out there
every single day working very very hard to keep communities safe,
(25:34):
keep customers safe, and make sure that we are offering
safe and reliable energy. And I know we probably take
that for granted because we come home, we flip on
our life and it just happens every single time. But
there's a machine behind this and those are those thirty
five hundred committed, passionate employees and team members who are
(25:55):
making that happen every single day.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
I love it. I love it. Thank you, and lastly,
just tell us how to find more information about d
G YEP.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
I would say, would direct you to BG dot com,
where you can get a wealth of information on energy efficiency,
on budget billing, on some of our payment programs to
support you and your family each day.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Well, thank you so much, Tamba. I really appreciate you
taking the time today. It was great to talk to
you and learn more about VG and you know, all
the things that you all are doing there to keep
the lights on and also bring some of those points
to the forefront about what's happening here in Maryland. So
we really appreciate that. And yeah, thank you so much
(26:43):
for your time.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
No, John, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time.
And hopefully we'll get to meet face to face here soon.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I look forward to that. Thank you so much, Tambile.
This has been iHeartMedia CEOs.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
You should know
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