 Welcome. I'm Cheryl Mitchell, the president of Tree Levin, and have been doing a series called Grounded Leadership, where we explore the people in our communities who have made a huge, huge difference for all of us. Today we'll be talking about the Conn Hogan Awards, and I am thrilled to have as my guest Mary Powell, who is the CEO of the Green Mountain Power Corporation. Mary, welcome. Thank you. It's wonderful to be here with you, Cheryl. I so appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to talk about the Hogan Awards, and especially to talk about why you chose to make a nomination of the winning awardee last year, Colonel James Baker. But first, I just want to let our audience know that Mary exemplifies all of the things that we're looking for in the Hogan Award, somebody who is innovative, caring, compassionate, works with the team. These could as easily be the Mary Powell Awards. I see you as one of the giants in really changing Vermont for the good in so much of the work that you've done. And I'm wondering, could you just take a minute to talk about you've become certified, you've been a leader in becoming a B-Corp, a benefit corporation, what that's meant to Green Mountain Power and to the state? Well, first of all, it's wonderful to be with you and to talk about the Conn Hogan Award and to talk about the amazing Jim Baker and why I nominated him last year. And to talk about being a benefit corporation, because I actually feel like it ties in perfectly with the conversation and the Conn Hogan Award. Because really at the end of the day becoming a benefit corporation, first it's not easy, and second it's a serious commitment, because you literally have to change your corporate bylaws to say that you exist for the benefit of the customers and communities you serve. And we also say the planet. So it's really customers, communities, and the planet. And so it really means a lot to all of us. And we became certified a number of years ago, but as I like to say, it kind of naturally came out of acting like one anyway. And I think the exciting part about the work we do is we are customer obsessed. We are obsessed with Vermont. We love Vermont. We want to make a difference. And so that ethos in Green Mountain Power is what got us to the point where we went through the process to be certified. And actually, when we were certified, we got an incredibly high score, because I think we were already... You were already doing it. We were already behaving in that way. So, and you're serving now 78% of the population of Vermont? Yeah, we serve the vast majority of Vermont, anywhere from Bennington and Sunderland to Brattleboro and Wilmington all the way up to St. Johnsbury and St. Albans. So we have, I think, 11,000 miles of line. That's another way to think about it. And certainly, 40-some-odd hydro stations that we take care of and a couple wind farms. And then it's really about providing incredible low-carbon, low-cost, reliable service to Vermonters while we innovate. So a huge reach into the community as Conn Hogan had. Conn, I had the wonderful privilege of working with him for 10 years. And he just brought that same kind of focus on what we can do to make Vermont a better place. Absolutely agree. In fact, I came to Vermont in 1989, and I got to work for the State of Vermont for three years when I first came to Vermont. Yes, I was. And Conn Hogan was one of the folks I got to work with. And I was so thrilled to work with a public servant that had the caliber of not just leadership skills, but these deeply rooted values in doing the right thing, not just for Vermont, but for all the people that he worked with. And that was so powerful. So this award we started in 2015 when Conn was still alive, but we knew that he was ailing to just really highlight the kind of leadership that he exemplifies. I think last year was the first time that you made a nomination. And I'm curious, what went into your thinking to be ready to nominate somebody? Well, you know, honestly, again, I'm a huge fan of Conn's. And I, you know, really as I think about it, I should have been nominating people every year because I think it's really important. I think it's really important to recognize our peers, to recognize other Vermonters, you know, whether they're early in their career, peers that are early in their career or, you know, but anybody who's leading, you know, needs to be recognized and celebrated. And that becomes such a great platform for inspiring others. So I was just thrilled to be able to nominate Jim Baker. Well, and I have to say, I've been on the committee since we started. None of us had heard of Jim Baker. So this was a, it was a really important nomination. We weren't aware of what was going on in Rutland. We weren't aware of the relationship between the business community and the criminal justice community and any of those things. So we're very grateful to you. And I'm wondering if that was a deliberate choice to... Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I think that there are, you know, so many amazing leaders that need to be celebrated and don't necessarily have the visibility that comes when you're a Mary Powell leading the state's largest energy company, right? Because whether you want visibility or not, that comes with the job. It comes with the job. You know, and there are so many amazing things that are happening in our state. And yeah, he exemplified, I thought, everything that Khan Hogan valued. I mean, everything, like the focus on data, the focus on bringing love to your work. I mean, I feel like the biggest thing we bonded over together when I started having the opportunity to work in Rutland with the Rutland community was really the love of the community and the potential for being part of the transformation that many others in Rutland too realized was there around really leaning into the beauty of the community, the love in the community, and bringing together all the different stakeholders that all have so much in common. So it really was this great merging of the police department and certainly the mayor's office and the business leaders and folks on the social services side of the equation and all working together. To me, it just exemplifies the power of a small state like Vermont. That's hard to accomplish in real. I'm not saying it's impossible, but in big, big states with massive community, our power is in our smallness. And Jim Baker knew that. Our power and our strength, I also feel as if Vermont in so many areas has been able to be a leader in the nation with environmental protection or the work that you're doing, our early childhood work because we're small and because we recognize and respect each other. Yeah, and we have the ability to get people around the proverbial kitchen table. We really do, and we have the ability, I think, on most days to realize that we have more in common than we have disagreement over. And that's really where I think he is so powerful. Jim is so powerful because it's not just about using love. Again, it's about using data and love and grit. He also was tireless and he is the type of person that, you know, it's boots on the ground. He has a boots on the ground approach, which he and I both really share. And in fact, Rutland for you, for Green Mountain Powers, now you're City of the Future, is that? Yeah, absolutely. So part of where we were using energy as a force for good in the work that Rutland was doing was really tapping into the transformation work and then launching our transformation work in Rutland. So, you know, making, working with the community to have Rutland become the solar generation capital of New England. So that was a goal we set. And we brought in all of the solar developers for a big meeting. We actually led them to places we thought would be really good for solar adoption. We led, you know, basically a campaign showing that it could produce really strong socioeconomic benefits. And then we worked with, you know, Jim Baker and his team to really talk about how can we bring transformation to some of the communities that he and all of us were feeling could use or would benefit from or would love transformation the most. So, I just want to say you're the mechanics of your nomination were also stunning because we obviously chose Jim Baker because of who he is and what he exemplifies. But I'm wondering if you could talk about or give some recommendations to anybody else who's thinking about nominations. We were taken that you gave very specific examples. You talked about his use of data. Yeah, exactly. So my advice for others is, you know, put some elbow grease into it. You know, it takes some grit to tell somebody's story. And I think sometimes we just, you know, oh, I think Susie Q should be reckoned, right? And you're right. What we did and maybe a part of it was because we knew he wasn't necessarily a name. Everybody would know, right? And so I wanted to tell his story. You know, really we wanted to tell his story. So again, Steve Costello and Kristen and others participated in putting together that package that you got. But it was, yeah, it was, it came from a place of love because we love it and we brought a lot of grit to it. Well, we were so grateful both to you and to Jim and to everybody that put some effort into that. You know that this year kind of is no longer with us. So this will be our first year of the Hogan Awards without him. And when we told him that James was the person that had been selected, he said, you guys have hit this just perfectly. This is exactly the kind of person that I would hope people would recognize as a leader. So I'm wondering if you have any closing thoughts for us about, we'll still have many years of the award. We're aiming for 10 years, so there's still another six years. Any closing thoughts about how to carry forward the kind of leadership that you and Khan and James really showcase for us all? I think, you know, thank you for doing the award. I mean, again, it takes work, you know, to have a committee to look at all of that. And that's really important because again, I really believe that, I believe in the power of love. I believe love wins. I believe positive examples are really powerful. And, you know, we have a wealth of bad examples. And I think that a lot, you know, sometimes it's easy to go to the worry side of life and it's really important and really powerful to celebrate people that we think are successful. So I hope a lot of people submit nominations. I hope you are overwhelmed by, oh my gosh, how do we choose? Last year was perfect. No, but wouldn't it be wonderful? It actually would be wonderful and if we could find ways to really celebrate all of those people who get nominated, that is one of the struggles for us every year. Right, exactly. And but what was so powerful being there last year, you know, when Jim got honored was hearing the impact this award had on the previous recipients and the work they had done because that's also really powerful. So that's something people need to know about is that this has inspired a whole nother level of work for people in the context of the award and the opportunity the award provides. So thank you so much for doing the award. Mary, thank you so much for coming to talk about it. Thank you all for listening. We really encourage you to submit an award and the information is on the contact page as well as more information about Green Mountain Power because I just learned so much. And we also want to thank the station, Channel 17, for providing this opportunity for people to get their message out to the public. If you have a message that you'd like to get out and you're a nonprofit, give them a call. Thanks for watching. Thanks Mary, very much. It's wonderful to be with you. Thanks.