February 26, 2020 • EPE Related News
New Puget Sound Energy boss plugs into Northwest ethos
Story Link: https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2020/02/24/puget-sound-energy-boss-plugs-into-northwest-ethos.html
New Puget Sound Energy boss plugs into Northwest ethos
By Carolyn Bick – Contributing writer
a day ago
Puget Sound Energy’s new CEO and President Mary Kipp fell into the energy sector by accident.
She graduated from the University of Texas-Austin with a law degree, and knew she wanted to work in-house, rather than for a big law firm. However, it so happened that El Paso Natural Gas (EPNG) had an opening at the time for the young graduate.
Though she held other law-related jobs, after that stint, she found herself back in the Southwest at El Paso Electric Company (unrelated to EPNG), where she served as both president and CEO, before she was recruited to Puget Sound Energy in 2019.
She stepped into the top job in January, following the departure of Kimberly Harris. PSE is headquartered in Bellevue and employs about 3,100 workers.
What prompted you to make the leap from El Paso Electric to Puget Sound Energy? I was very happy at my job at El Paso Electric, and I really care about that community, just as I am coming to care about this one. I really wasn’t looking, but a recruiter contacted me, and told me he’d talked to me about a couple other jobs, which I hadn’t really expressed interest in in the past. And he said, “You know, this job is nothing like that.” It was the chance to really work on implementing something that was going to decarbonize electricity, and, in this case, it was in Washington state.
What appealed to you about Washington? I wanted to be in a place where I felt I could really put down roots. This may be my last job, since I am almost 53, and I wanted to make sure I went to a place where I really liked the ethos of it, and I really like what people were trying to accomplish. Seattle and the region is so impressive in that way. There are so many people trying to do so much good to try to combat some of the issues that we are facing.
El Paso Electric is a 100 percent coal-free energy company. What is Puget Sound Energy’s role in the future of energy? We have quite a bit of coal, which we are working on the process of exiting. We have some natural gas, which we are working on as well. ... We are working on the implementing regulations to figure out exactly how the Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA) that Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law will be implemented, and it’s really great to be part of that.
What other plans do you have for PSE? Something else that is really, really important to me is diversity, inclusion and equity. PSE, for example, has done a really phenomenal job of making sure that we have women in positions of leadership, though there is still some work to be done there. We need to focus more on making sure our workforce and leadership team are diverse in other ways. We announced the promotion of Kim Collier as vice president of human resources. I know that she’s incredibly committed to these goals, and that’s one of the reasons we chose her for that role.
So, equity has been top of mind early on? Those of us who are in positions of power really do need to make sure we have a level playing field, and we give opportunities for everybody. We can’t let implicit biases interfere with opportunity. That is something I really see us stepping into over the next year, and, hopefully, it will be a programmatic approach that will yield results.
I understand you live on a houseboat. How did you come to choose that? One of my best friends from college, he and his husband have raised three children on a houseboat in Eastlake. I visited them before, and when I was looking at houses, he suggested I look at houseboats. I didn’t really think that would be right for me, but one came on the market. I walked onto it, and I fell in love with it.
What’s the best part of houseboat living? Walking down the dock, even in an urban working lake like Lake Union, gives you such a sense of peace. You see the planes, you hear noise from the freeway, but being surrounded by water is phenomenal. Something else that really has surprised me living on a houseboat is that so many people just go directly into their garages, or directly into their houses, so they don’t really have that human interaction of a community. When you have to walk 80 yards down a dock each way every day, you pass your neighbors, you pass your friends, and you really do develop a sense of community, which I think is pretty wonderful.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
- Age: 52
- Title: Puget Sound Energy president and CEO
- Education: Williams College, Bachelor of Arts in Theatre, 1989; University of Texas-Austin, Juris Doctor in Law, 1994
- Family: One daughter, 22, one son, 14, and two dogs, Rio and Lefty
- Hometown: Eastlake
- Favorite food: “Any Mexican food, and I love sushi.”
- Favorite sport: Downhill skiing
- Currently reading: Just finished Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton, and The Testament by Margaret Atwood. About to start Humilitas by John Dickson.
- One thing you couldn’t live without: “Other than my children, I really love my dogs. They are a big part of my life. While they are not the most well-behaved dogs, they are a big source of de-stressing for me.”
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