Steve Young (SY): I was at Duke for 44 years. As I look back on that, I'll just mention a couple of things that stand out to me. At the very beginning of my career, in the early- to mid-1980s, I participated in rate reviews that included nuclear plants. This was a huge effort, as these facilities were new at the time, and getting them built, getting them in service and operating, and working their costs into rate reviews was a significant undertaking. To be part of that was such a rewarding chapter in my career.

The second thing I’ll mention has played out during the past 10 years or so, and that is getting our portfolio to where it is today. At Duke Energy, we had three mergers and acquisitions involving Cinergy in 2006, Progress Energy in 2012, and Piedmont Natural Gas in 2016. I was actively involved in all three of those, and we also divested certain parts of the company, including our merchant generation and international businesses.

To be on the ground meeting new people, discovering new avenues of business, and exploring new ways of doing things was exciting. These moves have helped build Duke Energy into what it is today.

Steve Young joined colleagues from Duke Energy in ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange.

EP: What are the most important shifts in public policy affecting our industry that you have seen in your career?

SY: When I think about big policy changes in our industry, two developments come to mind. From the mid-1990s through the early 2000s, there was a strong push for deregulation of electric generation. Several laws were passed at the federal and state levels, and a lot of regulatory discussions came from that. You saw generation assets divested to non-regulated entities. That was a huge policy change at the midpoint of my career.

What was learned from that effort is that this business of generating electricity and getting it to customers in a safe, reliable manner is incredibly complex.

The second big policy change that I have seen has been more recent: the movement toward clean energy infrastructure. The desire to move away from carbon-producing generation assets, particularly coal, makes a lot of sense. I think the industry is being very wise about making this transition in a rational way, keeping in mind reliability and customer impact. The pace of the clean energy transition has made sense.

EP: How have you seen Duke Energy’s efforts to deliver benefits to customers evolve, given the technological advancements and policy shifts that took place throughout your career?

SY: When I first started, the industry’s general strategy was to work as effectively and efficiently as possible, and those efforts would take care of customers in and of themselves. We didn’t know a lot about our customers, and we even used to call them “ratepayers.” We didn’t have many mechanisms to get more information, and there wasn’t a lot of communication between us.

The most influential development as it relates to customers has been the rapid development of communication technology. It’s astounding. When we anticipate a storm coming, we can send texts to customers. We can tell them when we think a storm might hit, when an outage might occur, who to call, and what to do. We can share outage maps that tell customers we’re aware of outages, we have crews on the way, and we have an anticipated time of restoration.

And, there have been advances in other technologies like smart meters that allow customers to be more involved. They can now remotely monitor and control energy consumption in their homes and businesses. This has all dramatically changed the way we interface with customers, and you have to be conscious of that. You have to be aggressive about getting resources and information in places in a way that can take advantage of these technologies for customers.

“The most influential development as it relates to customers has been the rapid development of communication technology.”

EP: Under your leadership, Duke Energy developed a new Sustainable Financing Framework. This has paved the way for the company to issue green and sustainable bonds, loans, and other financing mechanisms, which have helped drive investments in clean energy technologies and create opportunities for small and diverse businesses. What can you say about the framework and the difference that it has made at Duke Energy?

SY: I am proud of what we've done at Duke Energy in terms of trying to think about different ways to raise capital. We are a capital-intensive industry. At Duke Energy, we’re raising more than $10 billion each year to build critical energy infrastructure. When you’re building at this scale, you sometimes need to be creative about who you’re reaching out to.

We have embraced the idea of developing green bonds, where the proceeds are utilized specifically for renewable energy resources. That grabs an investor bloc that may not have been looking at our sector solely because they’re focused on renewables. We’ve also looked at financing mechanisms around diversity and inclusion initiatives, where we’re able to show how funds that we receive are benefiting small businesses and minority-owned businesses. That’s another pocket of investors that we can reach.

This work is so important for so many different communities. We’re trying to make sure more targeted groups of investors understand that the funds they invest with us will result in the types of investments that they care about most.

EP: How have you helped foster constructive relationships with regulators and other stakeholders during your career?

SY: For Duke Energy, what we've accomplished in the past several years is a great example of really constructive regulation.

In North Carolina, for example, we’ve seen bipartisan legislation that incentivizes us to work toward cleaner energy production and the retirement of coal facilities—but replacing those coal facilities in a manner that doesn’t sacrifice reliability and keeps in mind customer rate impacts. To get that done, you really need to work with stakeholders, legislators, commissioners, customers, and local officials across your service area to understand the challenges, risks, and benefits. Constructive regulation starts with the education of stakeholders.

And, I am encouraged that most stakeholders really understand the value of electricity and that our economy depends on digital capability, which requires electricity and the production and distribution of safe, reliable, 24/7 energy. That’s not taken for granted as much as it was when I first started in the industry.

EP: You guided the formation of the Business Transformation and Technology unit at Duke Energy, which launched in 2016 to manage the company’s information, technology, and security efforts. What is your perspective on the cyber and physical security threats that our industry faces today?

SY: It's amazing what technological changes have brought to our industry and our economy. Communication technologies, smart meters, and customers’ ability to better understand their energy consumption are all terrific. But, with them comes the risk that bad actors will try to interfere.

The first thing that I did when this area of the company was put under my leadership was take cyber and physical security operations outside of the purview of the traditional information technology department.

Security deserves a much higher profile within any organization. We then went about getting the talent and the people we needed to understand this space and the role that we play in it. We worked with universities, technical schools, and the military on recruitment.

When it comes to security, you need to get the right people, but you also need the right technologies: the firewalls and the tools that allow us to see who is trying to infiltrate our systems and ping our websites. And, despite everything that you may do to prevent incidents, you need to have an action plan in place. You need to think about the communication that you’d need to engage in within the company, with regulators and legislators, and with local officials and law enforcement. You need drills and trainings to ensure readiness if an event ever was to occur.

There is tremendous benefit to all of this technology. We are harnessing it as safely and as best we can, and we are allocating resources to mitigate risk and ensure that we can continue the safe and reliable delivery of electricity.

Physical security is an interesting issue. We always have had intense physical security around nuclear facilities. But, we've had to significantly advance the physical security around other facilities. We are seeing an increase in the number of people trying to damage our facilities, such as transmission substations.

We have amped up security around these facilities, using cameras and other technologies. We also have significantly increased our communication with local law enforcement.

Many of these facilities are in rural or sparsely populated areas, and we are working to ensure a greater presence of law enforcement to keep an eye on things. That’s a relatively new national phenomenon that has come about during the past five to 10 years.

“When it comes to security, you need to get the right people, but you also need the right technologies.”

EP: You joined Duke Energy out of college and rose through the ranks, building an impressive career at the company. Given your background, what perspective can you offer on how our industry can attract, retain, and develop the careers of promising young professionals?

SY: Duke Energy always was a fabulous place to work in my mind. Our industry provides an unquestionably valuable service. We are producing energy, natural gas, and electricity that folks depend on. I like that.

Duke Energy also did a great job of providing different types of opportunities throughout my career. I came in as a staff accountant, and I was quickly tapped to work on rate reviews. That’s not normal accounting work, but I was able to start learning that facet of the business.

I ultimately became the head of the regulatory affairs and rates department, which would not have happened without someone giving me that early opportunity.

Later, I helped with merger integration. That was incredibly valuable to me, as well, and it also was a departure from traditional financial and accounting work. You had to work for your opportunities, but I saw throughout my career that Duke Energy was willing to provide them.

The other aspect of the company and the industry that I enjoyed was the atmosphere of teamwork. A lot of young employees ask me for words of advice, and I always say, “Be a good teammate.” I’ve never done anything alone. You need to coordinate with operating staff, engineers, attorneys, the regulatory teams, the financial teams, the communications teams, and so many other stakeholders. It takes a lot of teamwork to operate these facilities and also invest in our system to serve customers for the future. There is a lot of dynamic interplay, which I enjoyed.

EP: Thomas Edison once said, “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed always is to try one more time.” How has this idea of perseverance, even in the face of adversity, factored into your career?

SY: If you work this long at a company, there has to be some level of perseverance. I believe Duke Energy Chair and CEO Lynn Good has done a great job of fostering a culture of perseverance. Opportunities aren’t going to fall into your lap. You need to put the work in.

A good example of that is the legislation and regulatory decisions that we have seen during the past 10 years. You can’t just walk into a state capital and say, “This would be a good energy policy for customers. Let’s pass it tomorrow.” It takes years of work, conducting the right education efforts with the right stakeholders. You’ll have bumps along the road, and it takes perseverance and bringing others along to make progress.

This industry is providing a service that is so fundamentally important. It is not a hit-or-miss business. We must do our jobs correctly every day, and Lynn Good has done an extraordinary job of fostering a culture that emphasizes preparing for bumps and keeping at it when we hit them.