Transitional leadership at Chugach Electric Association: 'seamless' change between Evans and Thibert.

• Author: White, Rindi
• Position: ENERGY

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In mid-July, the state's largest electric cooperative, Chugach Electric Association, Inc., quietly handed off the leadership reins of the company from Brad Evans, who has led the cooperative since 2007, to Lee Thibert, who has held various roles at Chugach Electric for nearly thirty years.

Thibert says he has been part "of the decision-making process at Chugach for many years, and shares similar goals with Evans.

"One of the advantages of the transition process was that Brad and I had very similar strategies and goals going forward. I don't think you'll see a significant change, and it should be seamless," Thibert says.

Transitions can be challenging for large, board-run cooperatives, often surrounded by political intrigue. Evans and Thibert say they worked hard to make this transition a smooth one, for the benefit of Chugach members and for the company itself.

"We've been proactively working on succession planning since I've been CEO. That has multiple benefits for the organization. It promotes good will among the workforce that there is a plan, that you can rise to the top internally; and, two, it gives us a stable outlook going forward," Evans says.

In his twenty-nine years with Chugach, Thibert has led nearly every department of the cooperative, from line operations to production, engineering, power control, safety, and more. Thibert started as manager of line operations and quickly moved to overall operations director, managing all line and substation operations. In the mid-1990s he became executive manager of the operating divisions, directing the efforts of all power control, power generation and transmission, and distribution power delivery. In the late 1990s, with the potential for deregulation on the horizon, Thibert reorganized the operating divisions, placing the power generation assets under a separate manager. In the early 2000s, he became general manager of distribution, which included distribution operations and customer service. After several years in that role, he took a brief break to work with consulting engineers Dryden and LaRue, Inc., and then returned to Chugach to become senior vice president of strategic planning.

Changing Times, Changing Relationships

In the last few years, Chugach's role in the overall makeup of electric utilities in the Railbelt, between Fairbanks and Homer, has changed significantly. Formerly the wholesale power supplier for several utilities along the Railbelt, Chugach is now primarily a fully-integrated retail power supplier instead.

That change happened mostly under Evans' leadership, and it was not always an easy process. As a vice president, Thibert took over the strategic...