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zero safety instances. You're not going to completely eliminate any of this stuff. I would
buy employees show clip-ons. But we went from 20 to less than 2 a year. That was a full
team. It was everybody was committed to it.
7. What is your experience working with mayors, elected officials, and their staffs? What insights
do you have about interacting with elected officials and working in a political environment?
At one time our company was trying to sell sewer billing so you had to start with the Mayor. You
also had to have good relationships with them. In Indiana we had 16 different locations. You had
to be very familiar with how to go into City Council, where we are going to tear up the road for like
ten blocks. So we would have Council meetings. Then when we got out of that we had to go
around to tell the elected officials about why we were getting out of the business we sold them. In
Tennessee I had to go speak in front of the house. We had a couple of other places where we
served water. Is everything going okay - just to stay in touch with them. I've had a lot of
experience with elected officials even though I didn't directly work for them. They can raise a lot
of headaches.
8. What is your experience working within a union environment/with a unionized workforce/with
union leaders?
I've got a lot of experience with it because in Indiana we only had three that were non-union. I've
been negotiating contracts since 2001. I actually enjoy union negotiations. I was always on good
terms with the union agents. I was a union worker at one time. I think my background really
helped me when it came to grievances and issues. There is only one when we were in arbitration.
The utility workers represent the majority of American water, they're almost entirely union. The
utility union workers in Tennessee was the first time that I dealt with union workers. They were
really notorious with intimidating and stuff, but I was on good terms with their representatives.
The guys locally decided that they didn't want to deal with them, but that they wanted to deal
with me directly. I had to get it. I negotiated vacation changes. One of the hardest things I did, we
had two different IBDW contracts of 8 districts, I was constantly trying to keep the contracts apart.
The biggest thing that the State contract on those two different systems had a better short term
disability. What I came up with that worked is I got in touch with AFLAC - I said would allow AFLAC
to come into your district and you can talk about the AFLAC insurance options that will cover what
our company won't and it worked. I had other districts that wanted to do the same thing.
9. This position will interact with managers throughout the City as well as other
organizations and individuals throughout the community. How do you evaluate whether
they are receiving the expected level of service? What do you feel are some of the
challenges to achieving a high level of customer service?
One of the biggest challenges is, when you're at that level you have so many people below
you that are touching various aspects. You have to make sure people are competent and
they know what they can and can't do. You may not know four levels down what kind of
service is happening. So you have to make sure you know what is happening and make
sure that they are trained. The best way that I have seen to do that, is we had a call
center in Illinois. I would go to the call center. They actually had headsets that I would put
on and sit next to one of the representatives, and I would stay all day long. That was a
great way to see how the system works and how the calls were being handled. When we