People In Power

“The multi-year rate plans meet a number of objectives for us. We can say upfront, ‘Commission and customer, this is how we plan to invest in the infrastructure over three years, over five years. Hold us accountable.’ That creates certainty, transparency.”

“We have a Reinvent website, where employees can submit their thoughts and ideas in support of our business operations or for the betterment of our customers, which are then evaluated and possibly put into our business.”

“It’s less about how to drive that culture and more about how to unleash it. The passion is in all of our employees, and every one of those employees says, ‘There’s a better way.’”

“We are seeing more constraints from a resource perspective. There is a great opportunity to continue to collaborate with our elected officials, state regulators, and economic development state agencies, to improve processes to gain approval for building out necessary infrastructure to connect new customers.”

“In January of 2025, we’ll be hosting that educational meeting in Oklahoma City because our MARC colleague and good friend Bob Anthony will be ending his term with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission as the longest-serving Commissioner in the country.”

“I increasingly see a need for SEARUC and other regional organizations to meet more frequently and have substantive, detailed, Commissioner-only meetings where we can discuss issues of common concern that we need to focus attention upon.”

“We are getting more sophisticated about understanding all factors that go into how and where we make investments. That also helps us defend investments to regulators and others, because we have the science, rigor, and discipline to justify them as prudent.”

“We’ve got over 450 weather stations deployed and take 30 years of data, crunch it, and get a good sense of what the forecast could be. Situational awareness is important because it’s a cost-effective method for getting visibility into the environment and is foundational information for all other mitigation measures.”

“We put effort into the bills, making sure all concerns the legislators had were addressed. We didn’t cross the finish line. We’re looking at what we can do without legislation, what’s under our power. We can ask the utilities to develop a wildfire protection plan.”

“Through EEI and the CEO task force, we’re talking to Congress and the Department of Energy and asking for options that don’t require us to serve as insurers of last resort for all damage associated with wildfire. Now, we are the insurers of a last resort and that’s untenable.”