Profiles iu Entrepreneurs!!
Charlie Bass: Unregulated Entrepreneurship
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"Every aspect of our corporation has had to bring about enormous change, but not without its difficulties."
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n organization that has spent much of its 142-year corporate life as a public utility protected by the inertial comfort of government regulation would hardly seem the place to embrace the risk-taking, rough-and-tumble of entrepreneurial-style management. Yet that's exactly what's happening at Atlanta Gas Light. When the natural gas industry in Georgia was deregulated this past November, the state's oldest corporate entity was thrust into a new life as an open-market competitor. "We are developing strategic plans to guide us for the next five years," says Charles W. "Charlie" Bass, IE '69, president of AGL Investments. "Our vision is to be the acknowledged industry and market leader in the evolving energy utility and related services markets." Two years ago, Atlanta Gas Light was reorganized under a holding company named AGL Resources. One side of the chart was the utility Atlanta Gas Light, the other a new, non-regulated company called AGL Investments. Whereas virtually all of the company's income has come through natural-gas delivery, the expectation is that by the year 2004, about one-fourth of company profits will derive from other activities. It's a fundamental culture change for the company, which is essentially reinventing itself in management and business
GEORGIA TECH • Winter 1999
practices, according to Bass, a former Alumni Association trustee. But it's also a great opportunity, he adds, which can only be seized with an entrepreneurial attitude, given a highly competitive market with many aggressive players. The approach for the keepers of the blue-flame logo is to fight fire with fire. AGL Investments' rapidly growing portfolio includes a host of unregulated subsidiaries, including AGL Propane, and a joint interest with Sonat in gas and power marketing. A startup company, UtiliPro, provides customer service and remittance processing services to the energy industry. Another startup, Cumberland Gas Pipeline, is a 50-50 venture with an Oklahoma firm. Atlanta Gas Light's top management was itself a prominent advocate for deregulation, and lobbied the Georgia Legislature to open the market. "We believe that competitive markets are more efficient and provide lower cost to the consumers," Bass says. "That model also happens to be financially better for us." New entrepreneurs don't have to contend with molding new attitudes and re-writing job descriptions; that's an additional and critical extra hurdle faced by companies in transition. "Every aspect of our corporation, from the holding company through the regulated utility and the entrepreneurial effort of AGL Investments, has had to bring about enormous change, but not without its difficulties," Bass admits. "There were many people who were quite comfortable operating as a regulated public utility and resisted the type of change you have to make to flourish in a competitive environment. On the other hand, we also have a host of people in-house who have advocated change and helped to push it forward by devising new ways of operating." Communication with employees, customers and the new gas marketers is keeping people informed and involved throughout the change process. Development of new processes and responsibilities within the organization was facilitated by cross-functional teams examining "every aspect of the business from customer service to legal, from information systems to human resources," Bass explains. "That played an important role in changing the mindset here toward an entirely new way of doing business in a changed world."— Gary Goettling