City Utilities has chosen the person to take over the helm of the company later this year when CU general manager, Scott Miller retires. He is Gary Gibson, who has worked at CU in various leadership roles for 28 years. Gibson was selected unanimously by the CU Board of Public Utilities.
Gibson said, for 20 years of his career, utilities were “status quo…we kept the lights on, the water flowing and gas flowing.” He’s taking the reins of the company in what he calls “an era of unprecedented change. Just from energy marketplaces, introduction of renewables, customers taking more control of their energy usage." He said the focus will be on "making sure we're responding to those and keeping our costs low and making sure we can provide what our customers want, how they want it and still have that affordability as they continue to use less of what we provide."
Current CU general manager, Scott Miller, he said, is leaving the company on solid footing and has built the largest renewable energy portfolio in the state.
Gibson said renewable energy has “got to continue to be in the mix. We have to have a diverse energy portfolio for renewable as well as conventional resources just so we provide the reliability that everybody in Springfield has become accustomed to, but as we move forward in the future, that's going to change somewhat," and CU will look for opportunities to introduce more renewables onto their system.
He will start his new position on December 22.