Ubits March /April 2015
Sailing into retirement
Ted Coates to retire in May
Rebuilding Together South Sound April 25
After 15 years at TPU and 40 in the power industry, Ted Coates is turning off the lights on his office days. On May 1, Ted will leave his position as Tacoma Power superintendent for the next chapter of life — retirement. Ted’s list of accomplishments is big. “I encouraged Ted to apply for the superintendent position — and I’m glad I did,” said Director Bill Gaines. “He’s made significant contributions to TPU and has made important changes in Power that we will benefit from for many years to come.”
Balanced Scorecard One of Ted’s most significant contributions was introducing Balanced Scorecard as Power’s new way to identify, track and communicate its strategy and performance.
“We implemented it to hold ourselves accountable for the work we need to do to achieve long-term success,” Ted said. “It helps us focus on the four things we need to be successful — healthy financials, customers, processes and employees.” The Balanced Scorecard summarizes Power’s goals, objectives, measurements, targets, initiatives and progress in one place. “Along with himself, Ted holds everyone equally accountable for knowing, understanding and applying what’s laid out on the Balanced Scorecard,” said Bill Berry, who manages Power’s Rates, Planning and Analysis section. “Because of that, we sit here today with a set of documented values and a vision that all employees know about.” continued on page 2
In this issue
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Q & A with John Lawrence
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A Day in the Life of a risk analyst
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Community Connection
Ted Coates continued from page 1 Engaged employees
Customer Value First Ted and the leadership team coined the phrase “Customer Value First.” It’s known as Power’s strategic principle and reminds employees about the utility’s top priority, who they serve and how to best contribute.
“Developing business cases takes time and effort, but they help focus our resources on projects that provide the most benefit to our ratepayers,” Generation Manager Pat McCarty said. The practice of using a business case to decide when and why to spend money has resulted in sound business choices, operational efficiencies, savings for customers, and a good reputation. “In the region, TPU is known as the voice of reason,” said Chris Robinson, manager of Power Management. “We’re the utility that’s done the analysis, and we use it to drive our decisions. And that’s all Ted — it’s his style, and now it’s our culture.”
Culture of compliance
“The strategic principle is how most employees conducted their work long before we decided to give it a name,” Ted said. “The principle is simply a way to communicate our employees’ values.”
Frugal financials Ted has taken a conservative approach with Power’s finances to maintain low rates, sustain cash reserves, fund capital projects and improve credit ratings. That approach includes using business cases to analyze and prioritize spending for projects.
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Back in 2009, after just eight days on the job, Ted received a letter saying Power would be hit with a potential $450,000 fine for failing to meet reliability and compliance requirements. “That letter was a real eye-opener about the state we were in,” Ted said. “We had significant gaps in our approach to compliance.” As a result, Ted assembled a team to establish a compliance program, create a records management system and develop a governance structure for more than 100 compliance standards. “Ted is the champion behind Power’s compliance program,” Utility Technology Services Manager John Lawrence said. “He successfully challenged us to change the culture, helped us develop a well-documented program, brought support for it from the top down and ensured the program evolved into what we needed to meet our obligations.” As a result, Power has successfully completed two compliance audits during Ted’s tenure.
Another challenge Ted faced head on is improving employee satisfaction and engagement. “He deeply cares about employees, their ideas and how things are going for them,” Chris said. “He’s made Power a better place to work by focusing on the underlying drivers of employee satisfaction, including communication and teamwork improvements.” After being appointed superintendent, Ted told his management team that employees and supervisors have a stake in Power’s success and a say in how it operates. “Ted’s very interested in what employees have to contribute, and focused on mutual respect and collaboration,” said Click! Manager Tenzin Gyaltsen. “Under his leadership, employees are empowered and given many opportunities to add value and succeed.”
Team work by the book Ted is an avid reader of books on management and leadership. Using his knowledge and experience on the subjects, he’s developed a group of managers who work to lead the organization together and not as individualized sections. “With Ted’s guidance, the management team has become engaged in each other’s challenges, which propagates teamwork throughout the entire organization,” Transmission & Distribution Manager Dolores Stegeman said. “It sets a strong leadership example that cascades through the organization.”
Retirement While the management team is busy carrying forth Ted’s legacy, he’ll be focused on other things. “What’s next for me is simple — serve, learn and play,” Ted said. Ted plans to volunteer to help returning
Q&A with John Lawrence Utility Technology Services Manager
Q A
What challenges has UTS faced as a newly formed group? To form UTS, we merged a number of groups with technical expertise in different technology areas and their own processes for how they approach their work. We did a good job putting together a team that has the right functions, but we needed to take it a step further to create shared processes for the entire group to use. Another challenge we’ve had is trying to keep up with the technology and regulatory changes while trying to support our customers.
Q A
How are you addressing those challenges? We have a lot of things underway. We’ve kicked off an IT Service Management project that will help UTS become a better service provider by focusing on the right mix of people, processes and technology. UTS is committed to transforming our current capabilities and resources into valuable services our customers want. To help with that, we’re working on an IT maturity model — a tool that helps us assess our current capabilities and resources and set future measurements and targets. Progressing along the maturity model will help us provide the level of service our customers expect and enable them to achieve their business objectives. One area we‘re focused on right now is a new Service Desk, which includes a single point of contact for technology support.
Other changes will include further refinement of the UTS organization and a new ticketing system.
QA
What lessons have you learned? I’ve learned to not underestimate the importance of managing customer relationships. We changed how the utility manages its technology, but we didn’t do a good job of communicating what we were doing. Customers were frustrated, didn’t understand why things took so long and thought service was degrading. Now, we’re focused on customer relationships, feedback, improving our processes, implementing better tools, ensuring our staff is welltrained and increasing the customer value for the services we offer.
Q
UTS is changing how it provides service. What does the new UTS service model look like and how does it benefit employees? The new service model is centered around best practices for our industry known as ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library). ITIL is something employees will hear a lot about as we continue to improve how we do things in UTS. We will adopt single processes for responding to requests and incidents and managing technology changes. Our customers can expect improved, consistent service and the tools and resources they need to do their job effectively.
A
veterans, improve his golf game and winemaking, spend more time with family, travel, take on remodeling projects and build a hot rod or sports car. Although he still has a lot to accomplish in retirement, he completed much of what he set out to do at TPU.
Q A
What should employees use UTS for? Right now employees can contact the Service Desk for any technology needs. However, it’s not sustainable to try and support everything. Currently, we respond to whatever requests we get without consideration of whether it’s really something we should spend resources on. As part of the service management project, we’re creating a service portfolio — an inventory of what technology services TPU wants and how UTS will provide them. Once that’s complete, our focus will be only on those services. We’ll work with employees to align our services with their needs and follow a structured process for implementing new services or retiring those that are no longer required.
“Tacoma Power is in pretty good shape, so it’s a good time for me to let go of the reins,” Ted said. “It has been a pleasure to be part of the team. I sincerely thank everyone for their support, encouragement and doing what they do so well, every day.”
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RISKY BUSINESS
A day in the life of a risk analyst As TPU’s only risk analyst, Ken Clark represents the utility when people claim TPU owes them money for damages. Ken’s work is confrontational — the kind that would make many people’s stomach knot up, hands sweat and voice shake. But Ken keeps his cool.
Evidence doesn’t lie
On this particular day, Ken has to tell a customer he’s on the hook for a large bill he wants the utility to pay. The City charged the customer $7,000 to repair a sidewalk in front of his house. The customer says TPU damaged it 15 years ago when installing a water service. That timeline was all the evidence Ken needed to deny the claim. He explained that claims must be filed within three years of occurring or knowledge of the issue. And just like that — case closed. “The situation is often emotional for claimants” Ken said. “However, I make my decisions based on the evidence, so I don’t have an emotional connection to how the claims work out.”
Righting wrongs
On average, TPU receives one claim a day, totaling $6 million a year. The claims are for everything from injuries, lost business and property damage to fried electronics, smashed mailboxes and carpet stains. Ken investigates the claims, and in cases where TPU is liable, he negotiates and settles them. It’s TPU’s policy to pay for things it damages, but the utility often receives claims it’s either not responsible for or won’t pay because of the unreasonable amount. Ken’s role saves the utility $5.5 million per year by denying false claims and negotiating settlements, and another $300,000 in returned expenses for damages caused by others.
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Each claim has two parts: liability and restitution. To determine whether the utility is at fault, Ken interviews people, reads accident, police and outage reports, looks at photographs and visits the scene. If TPU is liable, Ken decides how much to pay by reviewing receipts, repair bids, bills and other evidence. “My job is two-fold when it comes to claims,” Ken said. “Sometimes I get to make things right for people. Other times I protect the utility and ratepayers from charges they’re not responsible for.”
Legal knowledge
Not every claim is easy to decipher. Ken often consults with the City Attorney’s office on complex claims to make sure his decisions are sound. “This desk is the utility’s last line of defense to fix our mistakes,” Ken said. “When a mistake ends up on this desk as a claim, I can’t make another one in how I process, investigate and determine the outcome, or we could be open to a lawsuit.”
The utility has a self-insurance fund to cover up to $1.5 million in claims each year — an amount that’s twice as large as the utility’s largest payout in the last 10 years. Liability insurance covers larger claims. TPU also insures $510 million of its property. “We don’t include the big items like the dams, transmission lines, water mains and turbines,” Ken said. “If something goes wrong with those, we’d file a claim with FEMA.” Ken shuts down the claims desk for three weeks each year to help the divisions determine business and property changes made in the last year that alter the amount
On average, TPU receives one claim a day, totaling $6 million a year. The claims are for everything from injuries, lost business and property damage to fried electronics, smashed mailboxes and carpet stains. Ken’s precision doesn’t always keep him out of court. He also represents TPU when the utility files a lawsuit or is sued for $5,000 or less for property damage.
Insuring risk
To keep the utility protected from large lawsuits and other risk, Ken buys and manages insurance policies.
of insurance needed. In recent years, that includes adding oil trains and the Green River Filtration Facility to the policy. “The more business activities we have, the more insurance we need to cover the unknowns,” Ken said. “It’s the unknowns that keep this job exciting — anything can cross my desk. Every day is an adventure.”
Tacoma Water coming to a filling station near you Bottled water will soon be a thing of the past for TPU. By the end of June, our own Tacoma Water supply will be connected to 35 new filling stations around the utility’s campus. Bring your own bottle and fill up! Better cost and improved perception are driving the change. “We know our water tastes great — we have the awards to prove it — and we’re proud to provide our own product to employees,” said Mark Guthrie of Distribution Engineering. Each floor or work area will have at least one station in a spot where water and power
hookups are available. The filling stations provide hot and cold water. The filling stations include water filters, which alleviate employees’ concerns about taste caused by older pipes in ABN. “This is a great solution that works much better for the utility than having bottled water delivered,” said Distribution Engineering Manager Tony Lindgren. “We want employees to stay hydrated with the great product we offer.”
bits & pieces
BYOB
TPU ranks first in customer satisfaction for business customers
Tacoma Public Utilities
Corporate energy manager
Industry associations
Government Agencies
Colleagues at similar businesses
Vendors
Colleagues within organization
Consultants
Contractors
percentage satisfaction
100%
75
percentage satisfaction
75%
percentage satisfaction
50%
33 33 25
25
17 17 13
13
25% percentage satisfaction
representatives’ effective communication skills and customer service. “It is not often I can say that I am completely satisfied with my needs being met by a business, but TPU has done a great job partnering with us,” wrote one customer about Account Executive Keil Drescher. “I am extremely pleased with the service provided; do not change my rep.” “Dave (Rosholm) provides excellent support and truly understands the needs of our organization,” said a large business customer. “He’s been an excellent communicator and has always followed through on everything he is presented with.” Congrats to all who help keep our biggest customers satisfied every day!
TACOMA PUBLIC UTILITIES
Measured against other small and midsize utilities across the nation, Tacoma Public Utilities is tops when it comes to large business customer satisfaction. In fact, TPU is tops when it comes to small and medium business satisfaction, too. ESource, a national organization that conducts research and advisory services for utilities, conducts an annual customer satisfaction survey of business customers — one for large business customers and one for small and medium customers. While TPU consistently scores high marks, this was a banner year. Kudos go to both the Customer Services team as well as the account executives in Public Affairs’ Customer Solutions group. Together, they provide top-notch service for TPU’s business customers. According to ESource, Tacoma Public Utilities was rated highest for utility satisfaction thanks to superior marks for the utility’s account management team. Tacoma Public Utilities’ large business customers were particularly pleased with their account
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Community Connection
UPCOMING 2015 EVENTS April 6 11 25
May 2 4
My Sister’s Pantry Emergency Food Network Repack Rebuilding Together South Sound Home Remodel Emergency Food Network Repack My Sister’s Pantry
June 1
IF YOU HAD A HAMMER
My Sister’s Pantry 13 Emergency Food Network Repack 8-19 Food & Basic Supplies Drive
July 6 11 18
Sign up for April 25 Rebuilding Together project
My Sister’s Pantry Emergency Food Network Repack Habitat For Humanity Build
August 3 8 3-14 22
My Sister’s Pantry Emergency Food Network Repack School Supply Drive for Tone Resource Center Dam Ride
September 9 16 12 18 21
United Way Basket Raffle items due United Way Campaign Kick Off Emergency Food Network Repack United Way Day of Caring My Sister’s Pantry
October
5 My Sister’s Pantry 7 United Way Campaign Closing Ceremony and Swiss Celebrity Waiters Night 10 Emergency Food Network Repack 19-30 H.U.G.S. Drive
December 7 11 12 TBD
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My Sister’s Pantry Delivery of Adopt-a-Family and Giving Tree items Emergency Food Network Repack Volunteer at Tacoma Mall Salvation Army Gift Wrapping Station
✃
2 My Sister’s Pantry 6 Adopt-a-Family 14 Emergency Food Network Repack 23 Salvation Army Giving Tree
Cut out and save the dates!
November
Mark your calendars for this year’s home remodel event on Saturday, April 25, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Community Connection has partnered with Rebuilding Together South Sound to make a difference in the lives of seniors and homeowners with disabilities by making their homes safer and more efficient. The volunteer day is kind of like “Extreme Home Makeover”— TPU style. Employees, their families and retirees of all skill levels come together to landscape, paint, clean and do light construction. “Rebuilding Together is a great organization that helps homeowners — both low-income seniors and those with disabilities — with much-needed repairs to be safe, warm and dry in the homes they own,” said Community Connection Program Manager Erika Tucci. “The organization relies on volunteers with specific skills like our employees have, along with folks who are willing to dig in and do some manual labor.” The event benefits more than just the recipients whose homes are repaired. “Year after year, employee volunteers return and comment that it’s one of the most rewarding events they participate in,” Erika said. Over the past five years, TPU employees have transformed several homes in our service territory. If you want to help but can’t make it to the site April 25, you can provide supplies for Rebuild and get donation credit. Watch Newsline for specific information. Sign up to volunteer at bit.ly/Rebuild15. Select the “Mutuku-Durham” project.
Who’s new around here
Who’s ready to relax
Eddie Appelt Railway Switch Operator Tacoma Rail
Darrin Bacon Senior Engineer Tacoma Water
Jeremy Banks Mara Becker Water Quality Specialist Management Analyst II Tacoma Water Tacoma Power
Alex Brotherston Engineer Tacoma Power
Michelle Brown Power Analyst Tacoma Power
Christopher Caperton Rachel Gardner Clark Supervisor of Operations Utilities Economist Tacoma Rail Tacoma Power
Brad Garland Tyler Holovach Railway Switch Operator Railway Switch Operator Tacoma Rail Tacoma Rail
Vallene Pearson Administrative Assistant Tacoma Power
Josh Shryock Steve Siewell Railway Switch Operator Railway Switch Operator Tacoma Rail Tacoma Rail
Valerie Sowell Monika Sundbaum Administrative Assistant Community Relations Officer Tacoma Water Community & Media Services
Gus Williams, senior wire electrician with Tacoma Power, retired Jan. 1 after 25 years of service. Mike Orlando, management analyst II with Tacoma Water, retired Jan. 1 after 42 years of service. Monique Hansen, engineering technician IV with Tacoma Power, retired Jan. 1 after 18 years of service. Morgan Johnson, meter repair worker with Tacoma Water, retired Feb. 1 after 36 years of service. Richard Bachman, principal engineer with Tacoma Power, retired March 1 after 16 years of service. Robert Miller, locomotive engineer with Tacoma Rail, retired Jan. 6 after 17 years of service. Roger Dempski, telecom network construction technician, retired Jan. 1 after 17 years of service.
Haley Saul Administrative Assistant Tacoma Power
8
Find out who’s moving up on Unet. Aleksandr Vasilyuk Engineering Technician II Tacoma Power
Larry Wussow Telecom Engineer Tacoma Power
Zachery Zuhlsdorf Systems Power Dispatcher Tacoma Power
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Tacoma Public Utilities PO Box 11007 • Tacoma WA 98411
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FUSED TOGETHER
Power partners with Seattle University students and saves $20,000
Ubits is a publication for Tacoma Public Utilities employees and is provided as a courtesy to retirees. Jenae Elliott, editor ubits@cityoftacoma.org • (253) 502-8754
Tacoma Power’s T&D Engineering Protection and Controls group has partnered with a Seattle University senior project class to solve a practical but challenging problem — where fuses should blow. The five students will perform a study on T&D’s fusing practices and provide recommendations on the type, size and location of fuses to keep outages contained to smaller areas of the system. Although the seniors get credit, real world experience and access to professional engineers, the benefit isn’t all theirs. T&D will receive a recommendation report in exchange for a $10,000 contribution to the senior program — a fraction of what it would have cost to hire a consultant to do the same work. “It’s a win-win situation,” said John Merrell, who supervises the Protection and Controls group. “Students contribute, learn and interact; in exchange, we get a report with recommendations and
guidelines on how to design and improve our system.” T&D Assistant Manager Chang Choi said he would have otherwise hired a consultant. T&D didn’t just enter the partnership to save money; it also raises awareness about TPU and career opportunities in the power industry. “Many times, class projects are not focused on utilities,” Chang said. “We have an aging workforce that we’ll need to replace, but electrical engineering students have lots of avenues to pursue. We’re competing with companies like Microsoft and Boeing for talent. Projects like these get the future workforce excited about our industry and exposes them to the power system.” The students will present their work and provide their final report in June. If the project turns out to be successful, Power might use the program for work in other sections.