NIPSCO leader builds bridges with employees and his new Northwest Indiana community.
by Rick A. Richards
Jimmy Staton is passionate about a lot of things in his life. His family. Sports, especially University of West Virginia sports. And the utility business.
“I have two sons and we're all sports fanatics. My wife is very tolerant,” says Staton, the executive vice president and group CEO for NIPSCO. “We go to West Virginia football and basketball games and we also like sports in general. We have more sports-driven vacations than one would care to think.”
Last Christmas, the family packed up and headed to Miami, where Staton and his family took in the Orange Bowl and then a Miami Heat NBA game.
“We schedule a lot of family vacations around that kind of stuff,” says Staton. “We love going to the beach, too. When my wife and I can get away, we're looking forward to going to Indianapolis and Chicago.”
But first, Staton's family needs to sell their home in West Virginia and move to Northwest Indiana. When Staton took over as head of NIPSCO and of NiSource's natural gas pipeline operation, Staton made it clear he didn't want to move his family to the region until his younger son had graduated high school. With older son Cole already at the University of West Virginia, younger son Chance will enroll there this fall.
“We're going to spend more time out here now. I have been dividing my time, but that was part of the agreement with the family when I agreed to take the NIPSCO position. I told them I was going to be away more and unfortunately, they seemed fine with that,” says Staton, breaking into a big laugh.
Staton is a friendly, outgoing man who works hard to make people feel at ease around him. He loves to talk about the utility business, something he's been involved with his entire professional life.
A self-described “military brat” who grew up following his Air Force dad around the country – North Carolina, California, Michigan, Louisiana – Staton put down teenage roots in Louisiana.
“It's a big petroleum state and I knew I wanted to go to LSU.” And it just wasn't for the football, either. Staton knew LSU has a great engineering and math programs and he decided he was going to become a petroleum engineer.
After he graduated, he joined his parents in Washington, D.C., where he interviewed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. “I was a petroleum engineer and they like petroleum engineers,” says Staton. He worked FERC for a couple of years, but then had to make a decision about his future.
“You either become a lifer with FERC or you go into the industry. I went into the industry and went back to Louisiana to work for a pipeline company,” says Staton. Later, he went to work for Consolidated Gas in West Virginia and in 2001, the company was acquired by Dominion, a large electric utility based in Virginia.
That's when Staton began learning all he could about the electricity business because he figured – correctly – that if he was going to advance in his career, he needed to be as knowledgeable about electricity as he was natural gas.
“While I was with Dominion, I learned all about serving our 2.2 million customers on the Outer Banks. Maybe it was the defining moment, but Hurricane Isabell came through and 1.8 million of our customers lost power, some of them for 17 days. Our people worked for 17 days in 95 to 100 degree heat to restore power,” says Staton.
“That's when I learned that electric utilities play an important role in people's lives. You provide cool. You provide heat. You provide the opportunity to study by using your computer. We deliver a lifestyle,” says Staton.
“When I came here to NIPSCO 15 months ago, one of the things I asked the team to focus on was to look at the customers who experience a lot of outage and figure out a way to strengthen those systems.”
There haven't been any hurricanes since Staton arrived in Northwest Indiana, but in early June, the company had to deal with a tornado that knocked down five transmission towers in Starke and Pulaski counties.
Staton also was welcomed to Northwest Indiana by last winter's blizzards. “Restoring service is important to us and we did have crews out during that time, but we had snow plows in front of them,” says Staton. “We take our job seriously and our employee safety very, very seriously.”
Staton frequently praises NIPSCO's employees, describing them alternately as “driven” and “dedicated.” He's well aware of the contentious history that NIPSCO has with some of its union workers, including a bitter strike some 20 years ago, but he's working hard to build bridges and erase the past.
“A strike any time is a very divisive event. It takes years to overcome that. You try to work things out with employees,” says Staton. “You have to demonstrate that you care. I have to prove I'm different.
“For instance, look at our safety. I'm passionate about safety for our customers and employees. But our safety results were lagging significantly. When that happens and the metrics are lagging, you are sending an inadvertent message that you don't care,” says Staton. “I'm really proud our safety has jumped from the third and fourth quartile to the first quartile. We really do care about safety.”
Another way Staton is trying to show he's different is by communicating more openly with workers. “I have a vision of what I want NIPSCO to be and it's important to get that message out. I have to be out in the field talking to folks about what they care about. You have to invest in them. My job has been to reinstill in folks that we care about their safety and their knowledge.”
Staton says NIPSCO has “phenomenal employees.” “I don't think we were providing them with great leadership for a time. If you don't, then you create an us vs. them atmosphere.”
As for the company's future, Staton says it's bright. “We have the lowest, generally, natural gas prices in the country. Northwest Indiana is the crossroads for a lot of natural gas pipelines so we're able to get the best deals for our customers.
“We deliver a competitive product to our customers and that is what we want to continue to do. Folks start to look at our infrastructure and whether it can support their business. We're making the investments to continue to improve the infrastructure.”
Staton explains that NIPSCO is among the leaders in the nation's utilities in working with industrial companies to improve the environment.
“We're in the process of installing two scrubbers at our Schahfer Generating Station and then we'll install one at our Michigan City Generating Station,” says Staton. “It's over $800 million for the three scrubbers. We expect to have them all done by 2018.”
Work will begin at the Schahfer station in 2013 with both scrubbers installed by 2015. Work in Michigan City will follow with completion set for 2018. During the project, NIPSCO will employ an additional 1,000 construction workers.
“When I talk about economic development, not only are we cleaning the air, we're also providing benefits to the economy of Northwest Indiana,” says Staton.
While NIPSCO primarily operates coal-fired electric generators, Staton says the company recently acquired a small natural gas fired generating plant. For now, NIPSCO is 80 percent coal powered and 20 percent powered by natural gas.
“With what the EPA is requiring, trying to balance that with customer needs and keeping costs reasonably low and making the investments we need to attract jobs, it is a daunting challenge,” says Station. “I won't deny that, but I don't feel overwhelmed; I feel challenged.”
Over the years NIPSCO has been a favorite target of customers, employees, environmental groups and other organizations.
Staton says anyone sitting in his chair has to have thick skin to deal with the complaints and concerns. “Sometimes for political expediency, the utility needs to be the whipping boy. We try to discern what may be political and find those nuggets that are affecting people. Politicians aren't going to pick on us unless we're doing something wrong,” says Staton.
“We're a relatively humble company so it's hard to brag about what you do. Folks just don't know the good things NIPSCO does in the community,” says Staton. “We spend $1.5 million a year in the community and we spend $1 million a year on economic development. Our employees spend a lot of time on boards; I'm on the board of Boys and Girls Clubs of Northwest Indiana.
“We're not always getting our message out that we're supporting these charities. We need to find out what it is that customers think about you and then we need to communicate differently. We needed to improve and we have focused our attention on that,” says Staton. “We serve 800,000 gas customers and 450,000 electric customers. We know we're not going to please everyone every day.”
Staton's excitement about his role at NIPSCO is fueled by his anticipation of getting out into the communities more, learning about them and meeting people.
“I want folks to realize and appreciate there has been a view that we're rolling CEOs through NIPSCO and that we're not focused on the area,” says Staton. “I want to dispel that. Over the next 10 years, NIPSCO is investing $5 billion in its infrastructure to make it so much cleaner than it is today and provide greater service to our customers. We think that type of investment will drive economic development and improve customer service. We're excited about it. I have a huge passion around this. If we can solve the regional economic crisis, we can look back and say what a wonderful experience this was.”
