Why a History Book?
As Mason PUD 3 celebrates its 80th year in operation, the District thought it appropriate to document the history of the utility up to this point. As employees, you may receive questions in the community as to why the PUD would spend money to publish a history book. To help you field these questions in the community here are some highlighted key messages about the why behind the book:
The book is full of great pictures, stories, and other documents of our history; the history of Mason County!
EDUCATING CUSTOMERS & PROTECTING THE PUBLIC POWER BUSINESS MODEL
In short, there is a real business value to educating customers and our community on the value of the Public Power business model. In fact, to quantify that value – approximately $5 million dollars stays in this community because we are a PUD (not a private utility). That is simply the difference in rates only between a public utility and a private utility, not to mention the escalating effect when you consider that jobs stay local and employee dollars support our community as well. All over the United States there are utilities that are being purchased by private utilities. This is a real threat - worth protecting our customers against. Being community-owned and community-powered is a real benefit to our customers and community, but unfortunately new generations of customers don’t have the same relationship with Public Power as their parents and grandparents did. They don’t remember a time when private utilities would not build out to the rural areas. The wish for the book is that our customers gain a greater appreciation for the value of living in a public power community and that this book raises awareness about the issues the utility and industry have overcome and continue to face today.
Approximately $5 million dollars stays in this community because we are a PUD, not a private utility.
EMPLOYEE TRAINING
Additionally, it is the intention that employees of PUD 3 use this book to learn about the PUD and the burden they carry in their jobs every day to protect Public Power and its precious resources that the grange and people of our county fought to create. The hope is also that future leaders of Mason PUD 3 will use the book to make strategic decisions, knowing the context of those earlier actions. With the stories throughout the book, employees can gain an understanding of how the PUD was formed, grew, struggled, and triumphed over the years.
While the utility industry is complex, it remained relatively unchanged for many decades. That is no longer the case. Disruptive technology, increasing regulation and environmental concerns, distributed generation, and customer demands have catapulted us into a rapidly changing industry that would have been inconceivable to the District’s predecessors. PUD’s first commission and manager could have never imagined in 1939 that we would be reading meters wirelessly in 2019.
The vision behind the book was to encourage a utility and group of employees that embraces changes, is adaptable, innovative, and willing to experiment. As a future-focused manager, Annette enjoys the challenge of planning and preparing the utility to sustain these changing industry, however she recognizes the significance of learning from previous decisions when looking ahead. It is important to be pragmatic and responsible.
KEEPING OUR CORE VALUES IN THE FOREFRONT
Safety - Our core values are driven by historical events. In this book you’ll see how safety became our number one core value and why being proactive with safety ensures that all our employees, customers, contractors, and partners will all go home to their families every day.
Solutions-Oriented - You will learn how over the years, we had to become increasingly solutions-oriented as challenges arose; and how we empower our employees to be innovative, creative, and forward thinking to future-proof our utility.
Respect - You’ll see how the value of respect has woven a thread throughout our history from being an employer of choice, to treating our customers with respect and operating the PUD with integrity, transparency, and compassion.
Community Engagement - This book will show you how the value of community engagement helped us inform our customers and build partnerships with other stakeholders in our community.
Reliability - You will see evidence of our value to reliability such as building redundancy into our system, the equipment we use, our rapid response to outages and our preventative tree trimming efforts.
Socially Responsible - Finally, you’ll see that we are socially responsible as we consider the short and long-term impacts of our activities on the environment, economy, and individuals. Our utility is community-owned and that responsibility is recognized at all levels of the organization and why our core values drive every decision we make.