New EWEB CEO John Hairston introduces himself

Presenter: EWEB’s new chief executive introduces himself. At the board meeting June 2, John Hairston:

John Hairston: I’m John Hairston, the new GM and CEO of EWEB. It’s a pleasure to be here. Just wanted to take an opportunity to formally introduce myself to the community.

I’ve had an opportunity over the past three and a half weeks to meet and introduce myself to much of the workforce and of course the board and other stakeholders in the community. But, just to formally introduce myself to those who are at this meeting and online, just a little bit about myself personally:

I spent 35 years at the Bonneville Power Administration in various roles, the last five and a half years as administrator / CEO, but have a background in compliance as chief compliance officer, chief administrative officer, dealing with all the internal workings of Bonneville, as well as the chief operating officer.

I am a long-term resident of Portland, Oregon. I grew up there, Grant High School General proud. So, spent a lot of time in the area and my wife of 33 years Paige and I have four wonderful daughters who are all out of the house now. And, we have one grandchild and a black lab named Dougie. So, you’ll probably see me on the jogging paths with Dougie every once in a while.

I’ve enjoyed the transition to Eugene and the community. It’s gone probably as well as I could possibly imagine, integrating into the EWEB family here as well as the community.

So I personally want to thank everyone for welcoming us into the community and making it a very smooth transition. So I really appreciate it and look forward to spending a lot of time here.

The other thing I wanted to just kind of share is as a leader, just coming here, my core principle was really about: Leadership is influencing lives. You know, it’s not about flowcharts or titles—it’s about building relationships. I don’t lead from behind the desk. I’m more of an interactive experience. This is what I’ve been describing myself.

So I’m going to get out in the field and meet folks in the community, and the commitment that I will make to everyone, the board, the workforce and the community is that, you know, I’m here to really listen first. I want to make sure that I’m hearing what the interests are and what we can do better in serving the community. So, that’s important to me.

I think, the first six months I had shared with the board was really to conduct a lot of listening tours. So getting out, meeting with folks, having coffee, get an understanding of their perspectives and what I could do to help them do their jobs better and make the community better.

Also engagement, just, you know, there’s a lot of things that we’ve got going on here at EWEB. Well, it’s a big organization. It’s got a lot of serious challenges. And so making sure that I’m understanding both on the water and the electric infrastructure, the investments we need to make so we’re making the right investments at the right time.

And then also just understanding how our vision and strategy actually impacts the community. I can’t do that sitting behind a desk. So I have to get out and see how it’s actually being, you know, implemented in the community.

So, you’ll see a lot of me, I’ll ask questions on how we’re doing, if the things that we’re focused on are actually hitting the mark. So, just be as open and communicative as you can with me. I just want to make sure I’m hearing from you.

And another piece of it is that, you know, it’s about transparency with me. I really believe that for us to be good stewards of the resources that we’ve been entrusted with, we have to be transparent in the decisions we’re making. 

So, you can expect to get information from us, understand the direction that we’re going and, you know, be asked again if these are the things that are meeting the needs in the community.

I would say in the first four and a half weeks, the things I’ve learned is that there’s a real focus on sustainability, reliability, affordability, and of course, public safety. So we’re going to continue to focus on those areas and build.

And so, as you see things come out of the organization that I lead, strategically, we’re going to be in line with those areas. And hopefully, the message has been getting out to our workforce, particularly around safety, that I value their safety, their working environment and making sure that they go home in better condition than they were when they came to work. That’s a personal goal of mine.

So we’ll continue to work and grow in those areas. And then once we get through those first six months, we’ll begin to actually operationalize things that I’ve been learning and working with the board to build in terms of vision and mission. And, you know, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m looking to roll up my sleeves and, and really get into the real serious issues.

And, all of that comes with challenges. I’m looking at the financial aspects of the organization and making sure that we’re being fiscally responsible. So there’s a lot of tough decisions to make (the board will make). 

And we’ll work together to make sure that we’re as again, being that trusted steward for the community. And you’ll see a lot more rigor and I think financial discipline on the things that we pursue as an organization.

With that come big decisions. We’re going to be focused on decisions around the electric utility. you know, we’ve got a number of infrastructure investments to make. We’ll talk a little bit more as we move forward about the things we’ve got to do at Carmen and Leaburg.

The other piece of it is on the water side, the water utility and making big investments around resiliency. And so we’ll be real transparent about how we go about making those decisions.

And of course, internally we’ve got management systems that we’re implementing and we’re going to continue to have to make investments on critical infrastructure. So we’re able to deliver on the missions that we’ve got in front of us.

And, with all that, we’re going to have to start turning our attention to a plan, a strategic plan. The current one will be sunsetting here pretty soon, and my goal is to make it as collaborative as possible. setting up opportunities for, you know, no different than the community input that we get here to understand what are the interests and the needs.

So that way we’re building a strategy that works for the community and that I’m actually working with the board to make sure that we’re enacting the vision, the collective vision that we have for the utility.

So, you know, all of those things I think are going to be important and are going to be coming at us fairly quickly.

And then, I think the last thing I’ll just mention is that I really believe that EWEB is not only a public treasure here in Eugene, but is positioned for success. And my role is to really provide the type of leadership that’s going to enable that success, building coalitions, working together to make sure that we’re taking the steps necessary to be successful together.

So, my promise is to make sure that I’m listening, getting out in the community and being as transparent as I can, with the decisions that we’re making and making sure that we’re living up to the values of this utility and in ensuring that the community can rely on us at the end of the day.

Presenter: Those meetings have already started. EWEB CEO John Hairston:

John Hairston: So, just in terms of some of the events that have been getting out in the community and attending: Of course, the equity and community consortium event that took place on May 21 was a good opportunity for me to get out and meet a lot of the heads of nonprofits. So really appreciated the opportunity to do that. 

Also on May 11, attended the regional general manager quarterly meeting at Blachly-Lane. Got to meet all the other GMs there and that was a good, good opportunity for me to begin relationships.

Also on the 26th was able to attend the Power Town safety event at Fairfield Elementary School, which was great. It was really, I think, important to see these kids go and learn about power safety. And, you know, the more we can get out there, talking about how to be safe and knowing that I think the better.

And then of course, the Carmen-Smith recreation ribbon-cutting, that was a really well executed event. The team did an outstanding job. Upcoming, this week I will be attending the Public Power Council (PPC) executive committee meeting on Thursday.

On Friday I’ll be at the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference (PNUC) board of directors meeting.

Presenter: The new chief executive officer joins at a key moment in EWEB history, as the utility prepares to add a second water supply source on the Willamette River. The EWEB board will get its first look at three potential alternatives next month. John Hairston:

John Hairston: We will be bringing in July board meeting some estimates for alternatives regarding the second treatment plant.

The first will outline basically what was proposed in 2017. And then we would look at offering costs for three different alternatives, and we’ll get more into that in the individual meetings that we’ll have with board members this week. But we wanted to at least just bring to your attention that this will be an item coming up and what we would be discussing in July.

Presenter: John Hairston introduces himself to the community, as the Grant High General prepares to lead EWEB into a new era, with a free-flowing McKenzie River and a second water source on the Willamette.