Jeff Nelson has been with Springfield Utility Board for three decades, serving as its General Manager since 2012. He was there two years ago when a devastating ice storm hit the region, leaving many without power.
Nelson now plans to retire at the end of June. He spoke to KLCC's Nathan Wilk about career and experience. The interview was edited for length and clarity.
Nathan Wilk: What got you into this line of work?
Nelson: My background is in economics and engineering—that's what I studied—and so I wanted to do something that had a blend of both. And utilities fit that match, and it's just been growing from there.
Wilk: What does the general manager at SUB actually do? What are your responsibilities?
Nelson: I am the board's employee, and then I'm responsible for the organization beyond that. So I interface with the electeds. I work with Team Springfield. I'm both an internal operational manager. And I have the opportunity if somebody wants to appeal, say they disagree with a bill and they feel like there's an error in how it was determined, then they can go through an appeal process, and ultimately, the appeal could come to me.
Wilk: According to census estimates, Springfield gained more than 1700 residents between 2010 and 2024. How has the demand for utilities and the pressure on the grid changed over the time you've been at SUB?
Nelson: We look out in generations in terms of infrastructure. So our long-term view is decades, and we're looking at trends over the long term and how to meet the larger needs of the community. When I started in 2012, I wanted to move forward with a plan to acquire properties to build out the infrastructure that we needed for our existing customers and the customers of the future. And so SUB went on a purchasing transition and acquired properties. We had plans for all kinds of infrastructure, but we had no locations for that infrastructure.
In the pandemic period of time—and as you mentioned, we've had some growth in the community—we had a real spike in requests for new service connections for electric and water. Our teams did a great job responding to those requests. It comes in cycles, but in terms of what we've seen over the decades, SUB's always been able to ebb and flow and respond to these waves of development.
Wilk: Is there more infrastructure that needs to be built in the future?
Nelson: There's some things that have been in the hopper for a long time, and infrastructure takes, in some cases, decades. So as an example, the Glenwood substation. It's a new substation. It's almost complete. That started in 2006, mid 2000s. That was when we were reaching out to property owners and working with the city on appropriate locations that a substation could fit within the city's vision for Glenwood.
Since that time, we've been going through land use and engineering design and then construction. At this point, it looks like it won't be fully energized, potentially, until 2027. So these things take time. The other thing that's coming up is a Mackenzie Surface Water Plant. SUB has water rights to take surface water off the Mackenzie River. We're stepping through the exercise of now building on work that had been done, on some engineering design, and going into further phases of engineering and then into construction.
That project is going to be a significant capital cost, and that's going to be a signature piece of capital investment. We have a lot of regulatory pressure on water treatment. We have different sources, and having a surface water plant will help, perhaps, delay some other infrastructure investments that we would need to make to meet those regulatory requirements on some other sources.
Wilk: Customers are always concerned about increases in utility costs. SUB’s 2025 affordability analysis found that costs were still low to moderate depending on which income group you were looking at. What does it take to keep costs affordable for customers when you're trying to expand infrastructure at the same time?
Nelson: The focus has been on ‘how can we provide the best value to customers, ratepayers, without breaking the bank for them?’ And there are some expenses that over time and in the future, are large expenses that we're going to have to borrow money. We don't have any debt right now to outside parties, so we've been managing our financial system responsibly, but it may turn out in the future that we'll have to borrow money to pay for some larger projects to buffer the impact to the rate payer.
Wilk: I want to switch gears here, Jeff and ask you about the ice storm. What was that experience like for you?
Nelson: When that storm hit, It impacted Springfield really hard. It also impacted other communities, and it impacted our individual employees, our co-workers. But despite the fact that they were personally impacted, they showed up to deliver, to provide as much attention and care and attempts to restore utility services and connect with our customers, because they care so much about Springfield.
And so that was a moment where it was both really tough but so rewarding to see my co-workers just step up and step into it and really try to help the community as best they could. Some outcomes, because we had some lessons learned: the board wanted to have an independent after action report done by a consultant. So that process went underway. We also did an internal after-action report.
I would say that when the external after-action report was engaged and the consultant was initially brought on board, they raised the issue of ‘how transparent do you want this to be?’ Because they've seen in other communities where if it is too transparent, it can create some fallout. And I said, I want it to be fully transparent. I want it to be an authentic, real, deep assessment of how SUB and its role as a utility provider could be better, because that's what Springfield deserves.
Wilk: You've alluded to it. What are some of the ways that the ice storm changed SUB and its practices?
Nelson: I made sure that all of our co-workers, including myself, went through an incident command structure training so everyone understands and uses the same vocabulary for how we're going to interact in the event of a disaster.
Another area that we improved on is customer communications. So we have expanded on those channels of communication in terms of activating additional resources. We also have engaged with the County, the City, other agencies. We have gone through tabletop exercise with the City of Springfield, for example, so both teams from the city and SUB could get together and step through an emergency disaster virtually and then have a better understanding about how both SUB and the city work together in that type of event.
Wilk: There will be a new general manager moving into this position. What are some of the challenges, or the work that's left to be done, that you think future leadership will face in this role?
One of the things that is going to be a particular challenge that I've observed when Steve Loveland was general manager, Bob Linahan was general manager, and I am general manager, is the enormous amount of pressure to spend rate payer money for the benefit of others. SUB’s mission and role is very narrow, but other agencies may not have sufficient funding to achieve all the objectives that they want to achieve. So there has been pressure to have SUB do more in terms of funding for, say, economic development, for example, and there's an interest to find a way to lower the cost for new development.
But again, the math is different for Springfield Utility Board, because our funds primarily come from rate payers. So if we're providing a discount or reduced cost to something else, then the rate payers have to pay for that.
Wilk: Why are you stepping away now from your position?
Nelson: Well, it's been an excellent ride. Yeah, and while there's like these projects that are not yet finished, it's also a great opportunity for me to take time for myself, and I feel like it's a good opportunity for a transition to a new person who can take Springfield and SUB to the next level. This has been the most precious 25 square miles that I've been paying attention to for the last 30 years, and now it's somebody else's responsibility.
