Energy Biz - March/April 2008 - (Page 46) lEadERShIP ROUNdTaBlES micHael wHitesiDe MarshaLL We have been able to fill with very competent people every single position. New people come on with great skills, technological savvy and ideas. WhiTEsiDE A lot of people who you interview prefer to live in a smaller community. The biggest issue is we’re losing our knowledge base. Our average long-term employee is probably a 30-year employee. When those people go out the door, then all that information goes with them. What innovations are you interested in pursuing? Seventy percent of every dollar that we take in goes back to a power supplier. So, what we can do is partner. In the next five to ten years, we’ve got to have twice as much capacity as we’ve got today. What we’re doing in Georgia is working on partnerships with investor-owned utilities and other cooperatives. That’s a way we can mitigate some of the price increases that are coming. ENERGYBIZ WhiTEsiDE that’s conveyed to the general public. We tell them to use all they want because the more they use, the cheaper it gets. We’ve got to help change that paradigm. Prices are going to get high and it’s going to get to the point that some people can’t afford it. We’re still trying to sit back and trying to think of all the supply side remedies we’ve got when really we need to be spending a lot more time on the demand side. I don’t think we’re doing that fast enough. That scares me. BrighaM I have two big concerns that give me nightmares. One is the investment that we are making for growth. We’ve got three substations that are in the process of construction in one year and that’s a big challenge for a small cooperative. I also worry about safety. It only takes one accident to disrupt your co-op team. hEnsEL I’m concerned that Congress is going to do something irrational on climate change legislation and that it’s going to needlessly increase costs and limit supply. I also worry about significant increases in wholesale power costs as a result of growing generation and transmission needs. WhiTEsiDE My biggest concern is being able to add generation capacity to the system. In Georgia, currently we’ve got 40 percent coal, 40 percent nuclear, about 15 percent gas and some hydro. As we look into developing new resources, we’re being pushed toward natural gas. I’m not saying natural gas is a bad fuel supply, but it will be if that’s all we have. I don’t know if we can double our size with only natural gas generation in the future. So my concern is how do we get the clean coal technology or nuclear technology to keep our portfolio diversified. robert marsHall What is your worst nightmare? I wake up every night to a different nightmare, I guess. The thing that really bothers me as much as anything is listening to all the discussions dealing with our energy situation. We’re trying to make it a lot more complex than what it really is. We have developed a paradigm over the years within our industry ENERGYBIZ BE avErs allegra brigHam Final reflections? I’ve been doing this for 31 years. The thing that’s most challenging about it today is I don’t know what’s going to happen five years from now. Ten years ago, 15 years ago, I pretty well knew what was going to happen. We were going to build more generation. We were going to build more transmission. The sentiment of the public, economics and environmental concerns — there’s a lot of uncertainty. But I honestly think the co-ops will come through all the challenges together because we do work together, we share ideas and we cooperate with each other. ENERGYBIZ BE avErs 46 E n E rgyB i z March/April 2008
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