Page 146 - CSD - PUD 02 28 19

Deron Allen

Thursday, February 14, 2019
1:52 PM
1. What drives you to seek this position? Tell me a bit about what you know about the City and the
fit you see with your interests.
Has been to San Diego. Indian American Water were reorganizing and were offering me a
severance. Since then I have been working in our family business and we are closing that down.
We're in southwest Indianapolis, Indiana. The move - don't have to worry about snow in San
Diego. Ready for the move.

There's a lot do. My wife and I enjoy hiking and biking. The times that I've been to San Diego it's
just been gorgeous. It's a beautiful town. We thought about trying to relocate there some time in
the future. Being able to do stuff outdoors year round is very appealing.

2. Please describe your most recent position and day-to-day responsibilities.

American water is the largest investor owned water utility company in the united states.
Had assets totaling about $1B. I was in charge of the Cap X and Op X budgets. I had to put
together plans for my staff. In Indiana all of the private utilities had to go in front of a
committee and consumer advocate. It's a past looking test ship. We were investing
anywhere from 80 to 100m dollars per year. I was approving projects that would be
returned to the stock holders. I spent a lot of time with engineering. Engineering, safety,
HR external affairs, internal affairs, I was over all of it. One meeting I was talking about
legislative stuff, the next meeting I was talking about five different engineering problems
across the State.
Most utilities they own the assets from the treatment plant and source to the customer's
property line. Primarily private utility department. Most states regulate the larger utilities
like they do the public utilities. There's us, there's Indianapolis Water. It's really weird
when you go around the country because every state is a little different.

3. How many employees do you supervise? Who do you report to?

When I was there it was 369 around the State, $1b. Most of our facilities went away from
surface plant. We had a lot of Districts that only had for or five people. I reported to the
Senior Vice President who was over Indiana, Illinois, and Tennessee, who reported to the
COO. I was three levels down from the executive leadership team.

4. Please describe your experience in utility executive management and leadership.

I've worked in main breaks, fixing them and stuff. I went to college with a school that specialized
in wastewater. We owned some wastewater plants. I've worked my way up from the bottom. I
really enjoy going out and meeting with the frontline staff. You've got to get out there because the
field people don't know what you do. I really love to do that. I never gave an assignment to
anybody that I didn't know how to do as a result of working my way up from the bottom. I've
really enjoyed mentoring people. I hired a lady, she was also an HR person in flood line. I hired her
over from my HR person. What I do with my team, is I have them work a few days in various
departments. They will do it maybe once a week, or twice a week depending on their schedule.