Shortly after Timothy Bryant assumed his role as CEO and General Manager of Fayetteville Public Works Commission (PWC) in 2023, he reviewed the North Carolina-based utility company’s strategic plan. He determined a simplified version would be more beneficial to helping create a cohesive and motivated workforce, drive organizational success and maintain integrity and consistency in business practices.
He began by engaging in strategic plan discussions with executive staff, which included reviewing the company’s core values.
“We have received a number of awards for delivering clean, regulated water or delivering outstanding electric service, and we’ve been doing that even before I got here.”
PWC’s Organizational Development & Training Manager helped guide the executive group through these discussions to identify what was most important to PWC. Executive staff continued to group these ideas to come up with new, more concise values that were more relatable for all employees.
As they worked through the wording, they decided to make it easy for employees to remember by creating the acronym ABCD: A: appreciate and respect people; B: be safe; C: commit to excellence; D: do what is right.
“This change was key to getting employee buy-in once it was deployed across the company,” Bryant tells The CEO Magazine.
“These new core values also help to build trust and transparency with our customers, which supports our vision to be recognized as the best utility in the United States.”
Turning the wheel
A heaving trophy cabinet of awards points to the accolades PWC has already received and its status in the sector.
Starting out from such a strong position is in many ways a dream, but, as Bryant acknowledges, it can also be a challenge.
“We have received a number of awards for delivering clean, regulated water or delivering outstanding electric service, and we’ve been doing that even before I got here,” he says.
His opportunity is in how to build on this success. “My opportunity is, how do we turn the wheel to get even better?”
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Along with its core focus – delivering the certainty of its electric, water and wastewater services and reliable, cost-effective clean services to its customers – Bryant says he spots opportunity in improvement from an operational excellence standpoint.
“I don’t want to be afraid to peel back the onion on how we spend our time and money and our resources on delivering those services to our customers and identifying opportunities for us to get better and be more cost effective,” he says.
PWC engages its base of nearly 130,000 customers by seeking their input through customer surveys issued multiple times per year. In addition to gathering customer survey feedback, PWC is benchmarking itself against its regional and national peers, integrating new technologies, particularly AI, to help the company get better at some of its more routine jobs.
“We’re asking ourselves how we can deploy smart media and smart devices across our electric and water space so that these devices know where the outages are before our people and we can eliminate some of them in advance,” he says.
Community counts
Bryant says that while the recognition PWC has already received, especially from its peers, is nice, better than any award it may receive is the feedback from its customers.
And if there’s something that sets it apart from its peers is that the PWC team has the benefit of interfacing with its customers every single day.
“We’re not a vertically integrated utility where our headquarters is somewhere far away and we provide water to some customer that never sees us,” he says.
“What is one of the differentiators between us and many other utilities is that our customers interface with us beyond the annual or multi-annual surveys.
“We literally have the opportunity to engage with them every single day, whether it’s in the gym, at the grocery store, at church or at shopping malls. We get plenty of opportunities to hear their opinions and some of their unsolicited advice, which is great and I love it.”
“We’re literally part of the community and we have the benefit of seeing our customers up close and being right there side by side with them.”
As part of this local presence, Bryant recognizes the important role being part of the community plays.
“Throughout our organization we have a strong culture of volunteerism,” he says.
In the past year alone, PWC employees volunteered almost 4,000 hours of their time to support different organizations, community events, boards and board leadership positions.
“That’s how we really show ourselves as more than just a local utility provider,” Bryant continues. “We’re literally part of the community and we have the benefit of seeing our customers up close and being right there side by side with them, working together hand in hand at city council or county commission meetings, or at various organizations to move the community in a positive direction.”
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For Bryant, it’s an example of how PWC’s core values also extend beyond the organization.
“As we go outside our walls and support these community organizations, we bring that same mentality of excellence, of appreciating people, of doing what is right,” he says.
While it also requires that the team be aware and focused all the time, this continual customer interaction builds trust. And if issues arise, there’s already a platform of goodwill.
“It allows us to have a little bit of latitude to respond to something that may not be perfect, but they recognize the fact that we are working together as a company as well as part of the community to deliver what’s best for all of us, and not just us as a company,” he explains.
A lasting legacy
Community is something he holds close, particularly because he grew up not far from Fayetteville. When the opportunity to join PWC presented itself, Bryant recognized that the combination of skills and abilities he had obtained over a 30-year career in the power utility business and other private sector roles would not only be helpful to lead PWC but also ensure it remains an integral part of the broader community.
The appeal is also in assuring the certainty of its services in a 24/7 environment – particularly in a part of the country he considers his backyard.
“Having lived all over North America and being involved in various aspects of the utility business, primarily on the electric side, I thought my experience and interactions with local government, and customers of different sizes, could add value,” he explains.
As a municipal authority, PWC handles business slightly differently than the private sector.
“But nonetheless it’s still business,” he says.
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Experience in building a community, delivering for investors on the private side of the business, identifying various technologies and technological advances in the electric space are some of the learnings he has transferred to the new role.
“I’ve also brought the process improvement mentality and a culture of not being satisfied with doing good, but always looking to do great,” he says.
PWC has been serving Fayetteville and parts of Cumberland County for over 100 years. By bringing some of his private sector best practices across to this municipal authority, he is ensuring that PWC will be around for the next 100 years as well.
Succession planning
Before even setting foot on its headquarters, Bryant had recognized certain potential for improvement.
“One of the observations I had was that, while we had a very seasoned team, we needed to do a better job in succession planning,” he explains.
It’s something he says they’ve been working on since day one to identify the next generation of leaders as he and his team move the company forward.
“Succession planning is key,” he explains. “We’re looking at the key roles and responsibilities and getting our folks who are literally on the bench ready today, before it’s their turn, to step into leadership roles by creating opportunities that weren’t previously there.”
Such opportunities allow talent to sharpen their skills and learn to lead, safe in the knowledge that, if they take a couple of missteps along the way, there will be a caring culture around them that will help them continue to grow.
“When we can’t do that, we are not afraid to look outside PWC to attract people from outside of the space,” he adds.
“I’ve challenged all of my leadership team to create strong, robust development plans for all of their team members.”
Among the benefits that make the company a great place to work is its career choice program, where PWC pays for part of college tuition and fees. There’s also the recently established PWC University, an internal organization designed for a combination of both in-person learning and virtual training.
“The team has created an environment for our team members to prepare and be ready for that next opportunity when it arises,” he says.
“I’ve challenged all of my leadership team to create strong, robust development plans for all of their team members to ensure that everyone can identify what they want to do in their future years of the company.”
Such a thought process also allows the company to figure out who the next leaders are, where they are and what training or talent skill gaps need to be closed.
Better together
Bryant has big plans, but he’s also aware that he can’t achieve everything alone and understands just how crucial partnerships are with key supplies such as ElectriCities, a not-for-profit membership organization of municipally owned electric utilities across North and South Carolina and Virginia, commercial construction business T. A. Loving Company, engineers GDS Associates and law firm The Charleston Group.
“As a relatively small utility, we clearly can’t do everything by ourselves. So it requires us to find the best of the best external talent and companies to help us to deliver the certainty for our customers,” he says.
“I’m very proud of that we’ve done here over the last year and we’re committed to continuing as we move forward.”
PWC is also leaning into partnerships in the technology space, particularly to spread the message about sustainable innovations.
“We’re reaching out to our customers and telling them how they can use less of our products, through the deployment of renewable energy, installation of solar panels on roofs and conservation of water,” Bryant explains.
And such messaging falls in line with the company’s newly revised core values.
“It’s all about doing what is right with a commitment to excellence, not only for us but also for our customers,” he says.
“I’m very proud of what we’ve done here over the last year and we’re committed to continuing as we move forward.”
