Burns & McDonnell
Kevin Walker is the COO of Duquesne Light Co. Johnny Howze is VP, Supply Chain Management for Gas Generation and Services at Southern Company. Renita Mollman is Chief Administrative Officer at Burns & McDonnell.
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.