Partner and Construction Management Leader

Bob has 30 years of experience in maintenance and construction of gas and electric utility infrastructure. He started as a field engineer assigned to major pipeline construction and progressed to the position of Sr. Director leading a gas and electric construction and maintenance group with more than 5,000 full-time employees. Bob has extensive experience in all aspects of utility maintenance and construction, including directing gas and electric major emergency response efforts.

Major Accomplishments:

• Led development of the 2010 Strategic Plan for GTS under the direction of the President.
• Led a gas and electric distribution maintenance and construction workforce of more than 5,000 full time employees providing distribution service to 4.2 million gas customers and 5.1 million electric customers over a 70,000 mile square service territory. Direct responsibility for safety, reliability, customer satisfaction, production, staffing, and employee satisfaction. Established strategic and tactical plans to achieve significant improvement in results.
• Led the maintenance and construction for electric transmission, electric substation, gas transmission and project management groups with more than 1,200 employees performing maintenance and construction on 18,000 miles of electric transmission, 6,200 miles of gas transmission pipelines, and 900 electric substations. Significantly improved performance through implementing goal setting, tracking and identification of improvement opportunities.
• Established workforce strategies to address workload across seven geographic areas with multiple divisions, ensuring crews were deployed to the highest priority work first. Developed tools to track work and forecast workload, enabling efficient deployment of more than 5,000 employees and contractors.
• Resolved complicated union grievances and performed ad hoc union negotiations as the lead representative for PG&E’s Energy Delivery Business working with IBEW and Industrial Relations.
• Recipient of the PG&E Shermer L. Sibley Award for Excellence in Safety and Health, awarded to organizations that achieve superior results in safety over time, achieved while leading an organization of 1,000 construction employees.
• Led the effort to re-work the goals, metrics and reporting processes for PG&E Energy Delivery line of business, utilizing methods of reporting obtained from Cisco Systems while working together in a consortium of international companies focused on breakthrough performance.
• Led a team to identify potential solutions to stop injury and loss of life due to falls from poles. Team identified and implemented industry leading two-belt climbing method that is now being deployed by other utilities as a best safety practice.
• Developed strategic and tactical plans to meet the significant demand for new electric facilities in the Silicon Valley during the expansion of high technology. Established reliability improvement plans to reinforce the existing system and extend new systems to meet the growing demand for power in the Silicon Valley.
• Led emergency response restoration with line authority over restoration activities for over 20 years, including response efforts to Earthquake, Fire, Wind, Snow, Heat and external impacts to facilities.
• Project manager responsible for overseeing complicated and high profile assignments, led initiative focused on electric maintenance process improvement, initiated cost of living study to determine feasibility of pay differentials, and developed formalized emergency response plan and procedures.
• Served as general rate case witness, providing expert testimony on gas production, storage, transmission and distribution facilities.

Bob holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from CSU, Chico; he is a registered professional civil engineer in California and has attended the Utility Executive Course at the University of Idaho.