 Empowering the city luncheon, please take your seats. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the CPS Energy's 75th Empowering the city luncheon, please take your seats. And now, welcome to the stage, your MC, Monica Taylor, CPS Energy's Director of Executive Brand and Outreach and Chief of Staff to the President and CEO. How did they know I loved prints? That's awesome. Thank you so much. Hi, everyone. OK, have you come into a celebration type of atmosphere or what today? We are so excited to have all of you here today. I know some of you are still taking your seats. I am Monica Taylor with CPS Energy, and I want to welcome everybody. We're so excited for you to be here. I've heard from a lot of you today as you walked in through our living timeline and saw our dreamy cloud balloons that this really looks spectacular. Well, get ready because it gets better. That was just the pre-game warm-up. Imagine throughout the entire event, and when you leave, get ready for a completely different look as well outside those doors. So we're very excited to have you here today. And we want you to take your seat because we want to make sure we give an incredibly warm welcome to our CPS Energy employees as they grand entrance to the music played by our amazing band Finding Friday. And one of the members is actually a CPS Energy employee. So we're so excited to have them here today. And as you know, our employees are the cornerstone of who we are with CPS Energy. And it's the reason why we continue to thrive now and how we've thrived in the past and how we'll continue to thrive in the future. So with that, I would like to have the grand entrance that's led by Ms. Kilowatt, our president and CEO, Paula Gold Williams and our senior chiefs, give them a big round of applause. Each and every day. And just a little side note about Ms. Kilowatt over there. The first Ms. Kilowatt ball, there was a winner announced on October 29th of 1960. And after Ms. Kilowatt came to be, she actually wrote on all the fiesta parade floats that CPS Energy used to have. So welcome to Ms. Kilowatt today. As I mentioned before, we've got amazing things in store for you today. If you think this is good, we haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet. But we wanna be respectful of your time and I know a lot of you in here understand what a working lunch is, right? So that's why your lunch is already there. We're going to be working during this event. So we're glad to be able to give you a little fun during your working lunch and a little entertainment as well. And today we are going to take a look at our past, our present and our future. That's what our theme is of today's celebration is CPS Energy celebrating its 75th anniversary of being community owned. And at each of your seats, you'll find an LED bracelet, just like I'm wearing right here. And you can put them on, but don't turn them on yet. We're gonna have a big moment later on in the event. I will tell you, it's a little difficult for you to put it on by yourself. You might wanna ask your friend next to you to help you. I had my friend Shane help me with this. So I do appreciate if you can put them on sometime during the lunch today. And we're gonna ask you to help us power up this event a little bit later. And we wanna thank you again for your continued support of CPS Energy. We have so many guests in this room today that we would love to tell each and every one of you thank you. And we just can't have all of you stand, we'd be here all day. But all of you are the reason why CPS Energy is what it is today. So I wanna say thank you, a special thank you for all of your support and for continuing to celebrate with us today as we mark our 75 years of community ownership together. So special thank yous to all our special guests, our dignitaries, all of our attendees. Really there are too many to name. So big round of applause for all of you today. Right now I'd like to welcome the Sam Houston Hurricane Color Guard under the direction of first sergeants Donald Halford and Glenn Bain. And from the land of the lion, Kenya's favorite daughters, the Mopai sisters are here to sing the national anthem. This talented trio of ladies now call Texas home. Maggie, Mary and Marta who are the triplets and their younger sister Seraphine who is still in Kenya. The group has been singing for over a decade touring a number of countries. And in 2007 the sisters were awarded the head of state commendation by the president of Kenya in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the music industry and the nation of Kenya. Mary, Maggie and Marta are currently majoring in music performance at St. Mary's University on full music scholarships. Please welcome the talented trio of ladies, the Mopai sisters here to sing the national anthem. Hey, can you see what so proudly we hailed the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the weapons we were so gallant. All right, thank you. And whoever's cell phone is ringing, I'm happy to take the call for you. All right. Well, part of the culture of CPS Energy is the emphasis we put on the importance of safety and everything that we do. And the best person to convey our safety message for today is our next speaker. Give a very warm welcome to Fred Boniwell, CPS Energy's Chief Security and Safety Officer. This is how we do it. This is how we do it. Thank you, Monica. Good afternoon, everyone. In keeping with our heritage of safety is my honor to make sure that everybody is safe. If we should have such an event, there will be an audible alarm. And we have three safety professionals situated in the back of the room with yellow safety vests on. And they will get us to a safe place, whether it's in the mall parking or Traverse parking out this door, Commerce Street out that door, or Commerce and Bowie Street out of that door. There's a safe stairwell to get everybody to safety. So next is my distinct privilege to introduce Raelyn Van Pelt. Many of you don't know Raelyn. Raelyn is my executive coach. She is also a formidable part of our executive team here at CPS Energy. And she is also a crisis intervention coach. And she does such a wonderful job in such a good spirit for our team and a good spirit for today here at our 75th anniversary luncheon. Raelyn, to do our prayer and invocation. Wow, I didn't know it was going to be this big. So this is, you know, God has richly blessed us here today with beautiful weather. And I'm deeply humbled and blessed to be standing here before you to pray over our time together. And it's incredible pleasure to serve the people at CPS Energy. So would you please bow your head and pray with me? Lord, we know that all power and authority is yours. And we are grateful for all that you have done, are doing, and going to do in and through CPS. We ask for your holy presence to just fill this place and to fill every heart. There's been great success over the past 75 years. And we look forward with great hope and confidence to the future. Rise up the leaders here today. Grant them supernatural wisdom, crystal clear vision to lead your people. People first. Those are just two little words with great, great depth. It's a culture. It's a way of life here at CPS. I pray that they continue to create a place where respect and compassion goes deep in the heart and soul of all the people. Oh, Lord, just energize and refresh the people. Watch over all the people here at CPS Energy. Keep them safe and laser focused. Ignite a passion that is genuine and life-giving. I pray you rise up, CPS, that they may be the light in our great, great city, shining the way for others. I pray for a special blessing over the people who have worked so hard in putting this amazing event together. And I ask that you just anoint every speaker that walks on this platform. We thank you, God. And it is your name that we pray, and all the people said. Happy anniversary. I didn't even have to tell you to dig in. I hear the forks are already going, good job. It's like you've done this before. As Raelyn mentioned, people are very important to us, and you'll see that theme throughout this entire event. Today we're celebrating 75 years of being community-owned, but CPS Energy has been in this community for 157 years. And so you can imagine the number of people that have worked for CPS Energy, are working for CPS Energy now, and will be working for CPS Energy in the future. So today we'd like to recognize three very special employees as they receive awards for their years of service to CPS Energy. Our very own president and CEO, Paula Gold Williams, will be presenting them their awards. And our first VIP is being honored for being CPS Energy's longest current tenured employee. His name is Willie Mata. He began his career in May of 1971 and is still working with us today 46 years later. Although Willie could not be with us in person today, we still wanted to honor all of his hard work, dedication, and service to our organization and the community. Congratulations, Willie. Our next two VIPs are in the audience with us today, and they're being honored for being CPS Energy's most senior retirees. First up is Bob Mechie. He is 95 years old. Yep. He was hired at CPS Energy in November of 1956 and retired in January of 1987. Mr. Mechie served the community for 31 years. And his dear friend and our second honoree is Jim Petinas, who is 91 years old with us here today. He was hired at CPS Energy in June of 1950 and retired in March of 1992. Mr. Petinas served our community for 42 years. So big round of applause for all our honorees today, and thank you so much for your service to CPS Energy. As they're taking pictures, Mr. Petinas and Mr. Mechie were a retiree association event a couple of weeks ago that we went to. And the two of them together, you can definitely tell the stories they have and will have forever in their lives of not only working with CPS Energy but serving this community. And it wouldn't have been right for us not to do both honorees because they're such great friends and have such great stories. So we really appreciate them being here today and being a part of this event. As I mentioned earlier, there's so many people that we want to say thank you to, and so many of you, all of you that have made the success of what today is. But to really hit home the impact we're making in this community, I'd like to introduce Carolyn Schellman, CPS Energy's Chief Legal and Administrative Officer to the stage. So many people that we want to thank today. And there are three groups that we want to recognize in a special way. First is everyone who has been a member of our Board of Trustees. This is an incredibly important job for CPS Energy. And there have been some really remarkable people who have served on our board during our history. So thank you to all of you, whether you're here today or not. We also want to thank the members of our Citizens Advisory Committee. This is a fairly new group, but it is so important because it is the ears and the eyes of our community. The guidance and input we get from our CAC, as we call it, is impactful to us. And then finally, we want to thank sincerely the senior leadership of the city of San Antonio and the senior leaders of CPS Energy, past and present. There have been a lot of really dedicated people who have put good mind and thought into creating the company that we work for today. One of the things that CPS Energy wants to do is give back to our community. Our biggest community initiative is the Residential Energy Assistance Program. We call it REAP. REAP provides assistance to people who can't pay their energy bills. And we've been doing it for over 15 years. Three members of the REAP Board guide the policies and directions of REAP. It is the county judge Nelson Wolfe, the mayor of the city of San Antonio, Ron Nuremberg, and the CPS Energy CEO and president, Paula Gold Williams. CPS Energy commits over $1 million every year to REAP. And this year, we are so excited because the fact that all of you are here today and have been such a big part of this successful celebration, the net proceeds from this luncheon are going to be donated to REAP. And we believe we have raised $200,000. So thank you all for being here and being part of that. You will find envelopes on your tables. If you, in the spirit of giving, want to make an additional donation to REAP, we welcome that. Keep the momentum going. Thank you very much. As I mentioned earlier, to understand where we are and where we're going, we have to go back to our past. And it's important to take that journey into CPS Energy's past right now. And to help us tell that story, I'd like to introduce Felicia Etheridge, CPS Energy's chief customer engagement officer. You all for being here. I'd like to invite you today to join me to take a step back into the past where you'll see where it all began for our company. You'll hear stories that are intriguing. You'll hear stories that are full of awesomeness. You'll hear stories about the energy wars, affordability, reliability. And you'll even hear a little story about San Antonio having electricity before New York City about 157 years ago. But one constant throughout all those years is our continued focus and commitment on our customers and our communities to provide those products and services that our customers want, need, and deserve. So sit back, relax, and step into the past. Did you know that San Antonio had electricity thanks to the company that preceded CPS long before New York did, even though Thomas Edison invented his incandescent light bulb in a New Jersey lab, opened his New York generating plant in 1882, six months before that, we had it in Alamo Plaza on the post office. City Public Service and its predecessor companies, going back to 1860, has always been in the same business and it has always served the same community. 156 years, but since 1942, that commitment to San Antonio and the citizens in the surrounding area has been absolute. From October 1940 to the city bought the San Antonio Public Service Company and it turned out to be the greatest event in the history of San Antonio. It was bought for less than 40 million in the 1940s. And then we were paying the city when I retired in 1999, about $200 million a year. It represents about 30% of our general fund revenue for our city budget and that is the portion of the budget that pays for the most important things that we do, police and fire, street maintenance, parks and recreation, code enforcement, library system, all of those things that are most important to the community. Being 75 years owned by the community is amazing from the standpoint of we do it, I kind of say that we're kind of the silent superheroes. We do it every day and nobody really thinks about it. They click the lights on and it just happens. But once you start to tell people 75 years and then you say we've done it at very affordable rates, we've always made sure that the community receives the best energy solutions that are out there across the globe and we've done it year after year after year and been able to give about $7 billion over 75 years at the same time. I mean, I think people are now putting it all together and I look at each one of our team members and to me they don't have little invisible s's on their chest. They have big broad s's on their chest. They're superheroes, they're doing something without ego. They do it because they know it's right. The time that I started was all of the line when we're still climbing poles. There was no such thing as a bucket trucks. It was a wonderful place to work. You had a lot of friends, you knew people, you knew your employees, you knew your employees' families. I enjoyed every minute of it. I enjoyed it very much. In the 60s, the thing was water, it's conservation of water and they decided to go ahead and build Brony Lake. So it really changed the way the system worked electrically because now instead of being spread out around the city, you had everything down in one side, shipping everything north. A lot of the people that come here to bring businesses to San Antonio do it because of not only the dependable power, but the cost. Our electrical costs are something really to make us competitive. I can remember back in 72 and 73 when we had to get fuel other than our gas supplier. They cut us off and that was the old Oscar Wyatt time. And I don't think I saw so many people, including myself, that had to come out here and get these machines all burning oil, burning something in order to supply the customers. I became very edgy over the fact that I could see that the natural gas rates were really triggering increases in our utility rates. I said, we heard contract and our citizens are having in some cases make choice between whether they pay their utility bills or go to the grocery store this week. And we've got to sue. And so finally we did sue. And we ended up with a major victory on that scene. It was over a hundred million dollars plus getting that whole relationship straightened out with our natural gas supplier. The next thing that happened was the nuclear plant. I call these the energy wars. Well, the trouble with the nuclear plant was it had been sold to the public that our share of the nuclear plant, the South Texas nuclear plant that was being built in Houston, our share would be maybe about one billion. Now that sounded like a great big number to all of us. However, it wasn't the whole story. And as I recall, it ended up costing five billion. And each time it went up, it was headlines in the local newspaper. Which in itself, at the time, of course, it looked like a disaster. Obviously, time has proven that it has been God sent to San Antonio. And that's why we enjoy some of the good rates that we do. Once that nuclear plant was completed, that the cost of the energy it would generate would be much lower for the energy received than any other source of energy. But during the time I was mayor, we were approached with a private entity that said this is such an attractive company, we would like to incorporate it into our private system and we'll pay you billions of dollars, billions to the city treasury. The truth of the matter is we'll be better off in the long run making sure that the power serves our needs in a public way and still getting that 14% indefinitely as long as we're owners of the system. And so today you look at it, Bolero has grown significantly with the largest public company in San Antonio. And we spun off Newstar, which probably Newstar is either the second or third largest public company, and CPS played a key role. We concentrated on two big things. One was reliability of electric and gas service, the highest reliability that we could reasonably produce. And second of all, we wanted to make sure that we had some of the most competitive electric bills and gas bills in the country. My first management job here was dealing with labor relations. And I kind of turned around the management labor relations agreement and how they re-interacted together. And we became kind of like a standout in the seventh district of the IBEW. And we were always touted as the best management labor relations that existed in the utility industry in the Southern United States. That period of time, 95 to 97, there were just multiple transitions. Grocer of Kelly, the changes in ownership of the South Tech Legislature to look at de-regulation. I think during those early 2000 and 2005 years, and even on my city council days prior to that, CPS was in transition as one of the largest publicly owned utility companies in the nation. It found itself competing in a competitive world with the privately owned utilities. We worked on trying to figure out ways to be more efficient and accept the fact that we were going to be in competition soon. Now that didn't happen, but I think that was the very first time that we had to really look inward and determine for ourselves who are we and who do we wanna be in the future. They're what we call government type jobs. And you have a job for life and you don't really have to be that efficient. So CPS doesn't work that way. CPS works from a standpoint that we are gonna deliver. We're gonna deliver better service and we're gonna deliver better price. And they work on it just like every employee there is a shareholder of which they are. So I hope you liked that little trip down memory lane and into the past. And as you saw in the video, CPS Energy has been very fortunate throughout all of its years to have outstanding leadership. And it's no different today. It's my distinct honor and pleasure to introduce to you a member of our board of trustees and chairman of our 75th anniversary committee. Without his outstanding leadership and efforts, we would find ourselves here today celebrating this milestone with you 100,000 of our closest friends. So without further ado, let me introduce to you Trustee John Sting. Well, that's a great tune. Thank you, Ms. Ethridge. So I wanna sort of break what our MC said. I do wanna introduce somebody that we're very honored to have him here today. He's my good friend. We claim him for San Antonio. It's the honorable Rolando Pablos. Rolando is 111th Texas Secretary of State and he's a past member of the Public Utility Commission of Texas. Secretary Pablos, please stand and let's give him a round of applause. As many of you know, I'm the newest trustee of CPS Energy. And when I was selected to be a trustee in January of last year, I went back and reread the two chapters on city public service in a book entitled San Antonio Lawyer written by Wilbur Matthews, who was our company's lead lawyer for over 50 years. As a young lawyer, I worked for Wilbur Matthews in a firm that was San Antonio's oldest, then called Matthews, now in McFarland and Barrett. And today it's now evolved into Dykema Cox Smith and they're one of our sponsors today. And I just wanna thank Jamie Smith. He's here today at the table with me. Jamie, stand up. He's a Texas managing partner of that firm. So two of the outstanding lawyers who Mr. Matthews mentored and who then went on to ably represent CPS Energy during some of its most challenging times are here today. And sometimes they're not given the recognition for how very important they've been in the history of the company and they wouldn't ask for it. But I'm gonna ask John Wood, I believe he's here, and Roger Wilson to stand up. And John is retired but Roger continues to advise CPS Energy to this day. And we couldn't thank him enough for all they've done for CPS Energy over the years. Not long after rereading the two chapters, I had lunch with our chairman Ed Kelly and our PR advisor Jim Dublin. And I was talking to Jim earlier for the record that was March 11th, 2016 at the supper restaurant at Hotel Emma. And I told them about the chapter that recounted the purchase by the city of the electric and gas systems and noted that, per Matthews book, the closing of that big transaction occurred October 24th, 1942. I pointed out that next year would be the 75th anniversary of this historic event and sort of asked shouldn't we be thinking about celebrating that milestone? So you can guess what happened next. Chairman Kelly told me, he said, John, that's a splendid idea. And I hereby designate you as the chair of the 75th anniversary celebration committee. My first thought was, oh no, what have I gotten myself into? Or as my friend and our senior trustee, where's Derek Howard? As Derek might say, I made a rookie mistake. But we pulled together an outstanding committee. We held our first meeting on July 7th, 2016 and have been meeting every month since then. We've had a terrific time working together and it's given me an opportunity to get to know and interact with some of our key employees in a way that I would never have been able to do otherwise in my role as trustee. And I've told our CEO, Paula Gold Williams, many times how impressed I am with each and every member of the committee for his or her hard work, dedication, organizational ability, and genuine enthusiasm, and yes, love for CPS energy. So let me take a moment to ask them to stand and be recognized for their efforts. And I ask that you hold your applause and I'm gonna introduce the members of our committee in alphabetical order. First, Felicia Ethridge, and she's first in alpha order, but appropriately, she's also the lead person. She was just on our committee, lead staff person. KJ Federer, Laurie Johnson, Yvonne Hacker, Jessica Landon, Lisa Lewis, Steffi Auchenfelds, Christine Patman, Zandra Pullis, Monica Taylor, you're already standing. Jonathan T. Arena, and last but not least, our trusted advisor, Jim Dublin. I know Jim is, stand up Jim, you're part of the committee. And our distinguished author, Katherine Nixon Cook, whom I'll be formally introducing to you shortly. And I don't know where she is right now. Is Janet Holiday in the room? Well anyway, Janet Holiday and her firm CE Group were the event planners for this event. And that group is really the best in the state, not just San Antonio, but the state. And I just ask you to behold what they've done here. It's unbelievable. So I'd like for you all to give a rousing round of applause to all the people that are standing, the members of our 75th anniversary celebration committee. I had the idea it would be appropriate to commission a history book, and my cohort, Jim Dublin, heartily agreed. Our vice president of people and cultures, Lisa Lewis took the staff lead, and we proceeded to run into one obstacle after another until I thought to call my childhood friend and distinguished author, Katherine Nixon Cook, who, as luck would have it, was between books. A luncheon was arranged at Club Jiro to introduce Katherine DePauligo Williams, Jim Dublin, and Lisa Lewis. All were cried and pressed, and as they say, the rest is history. Some of you have your books in front of you now. So one very exciting, lasting, long-lasting result of this 75th anniversary is a history of CPS energy that will endure for years to come. Written by Katherine Nixon Cook, who is the author of three biographies, including Juan O'Gorman, A Confluence of Civilizations, depicting the life of the remarkable Mexican artist who created the spectacular mural that adorns the Lila Cockrell Theater, published by Trinity University Press, who is also the publisher of our new book. In addition to literary pursuits, Katherine has served as CEO of three local nonprofit organizations and one international one based in Washington, D.C. She's now going to give you a taste of the engaging story she's written, appropriately titled, Powering a City, How Energy and Big Dreams Transform San Antonio. Please welcome a truly outstanding writer and storyteller, Katherine Nixon Cook. The front page of the October 24, 1942 edition of The San Antonio Light, showed American marines wading to shore for an all out battle for the Solomon Islands. And two headlines were emblazoned across the page that day. One announced that the United States and Britain had opened a battlefront in Egypt. The other reported that the San Antonio Public Service Company had been purchased by the city of San Antonio. Other news of World War II filled the page, describing two nights of bombing in Italy by Britain's Royal Air Force and attacks on Nazi Germany's field marshal Rommel by sky, sea, and land. Not quite a year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, battles were raging in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. The world watched with dread and wonder as planes and tanks and men went into combat with newspapers and newsreels documenting the drama. Despite news of the war that day, other big news in San Antonio was the talk of the town on October 24th. Mayor Charles Kennan Quinn held a press conference on Saturday morning in time to make the afternoon edition of the newspaper, announcing that the city had made a deal for providing power to San Antonio. Quote, full details of the deal will be made public just as soon as we can possibly do so. He said, adding that quote, it might result in some savings to San Antonio. This would prove the understatement of the century. When I was asked to write the history of CPS Energy, the largest municipally owned utility company in the United States, I was worried that it would not be interesting. As the utility company prepared to celebrate 75 years of ownership by the city, I wasn't sure that a tale of generators, gas pipes, turbines, transmission lines could captivate readers. And although the purpose of the book was to recognize today's important historic milestone, I knew the story went much farther back. To 1860, when the San Antonio Gas Company was established on the banks of San Pedro Creek to manufacture gas made from tree resin that arrived in San Antonio on ox carts from East Texas. I wanted to start at the beginning of that story long before some very smart city leaders purchased a utility from American Light and Traction Company, a giant New York based holding company in 1942. Luckily, CPS Energy was in full agreement recognizing that its earlier incarnations shaped the company that it is today. I discovered that San Antonio's journey from a dark, dusty frontier town where there were more saloons than grocery stores or banks was due largely to power. Electricity and gas, lit homes and businesses, ran equipment and machines, provided heat for cooking and warmth and cooling when temperatures went over the 100 degree mark. Over the years, CPS Energy has maintained an incredible treasure trove of historic photographs and documents. Those introduced me to some of the wonderful characters in its past, including its first general manager, Colonel William B. Tuttle. For Colonel Tuttle, the number one priority was community comprised of both customers and employees. That's still true today. The discovery of natural gas in Texas in 1921, the Great Depression and its impact on San Antonio and World War II when 25% of the company's workforce enlisted in the armed forces come to life in this book. The rise and fall of big holding companies is a part of the story as well. Once President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Public Utility Company Holding Act of 1935 became a reality, utility companies like CPS, then San Antonio Public Service Company were put up for sale by their holding companies and the race was on to buy what was perceived correctly to be a real treasure. The sale on October 24th, 1942 resulted in the deal of the century for our city. Readers may be surprised to learn that a remarkable trust indenture governs the partnership between the city and the utility company and more than $7 billion that is with a B in revenues have gone into the city's general fund over the years. That money has powered a lot of dreams. CPS Energy survived the energy wars of the 1970s and thanks to a legendary lawsuit over gas contracts with larger than life oil man Oscar Wyatt, the city won another real prize when Valero Energy Corporation was established here. That story too is in the book riveting and filled with colorful characters. Special thanks go to new star chairman Bill Grehe who's wonderful forward for the book shares that story firsthand. Tall buildings and big arenas, the sprawling Southwest Research Institute and South Texas Medical Center, Hemisphere 1968, SeaWorld, Fiesta Texas, the Toyota Tundra plant, Morgan's Wonderland, and a boom in housing and construction, shopping center construction were and are all powered by CPS Energy. And over the past 75 years, the company has led the way in fuel diversification and preparedness as well as developing an impressive presence in renewable energy that will carry all of us into the future. So my initial worries were unfounded. The story is filled with wonderful characters, plenty of drama and fascinating information about the world of energy. I've started looking at those transformers, gas meters and power lines with new appreciation and the employees at CPS Energy are my newest heroes. I think I hope you'll discover that the book is truly a page-turner that captures the excitement of San Antonio's history and the energy behind it. CPS Energy, 75 years strong, thank you for letting me share your history. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine, for your incredible storytelling and Catherine, such a pleasure to work with as well when she worked on the book and was part of our committee and we thank her for being here. So she's not only an incredible author, but she's also an incredibly great storyteller. So thank you so much. With that, we wanna continue to look at our strong and thriving present and where we are right now. And I am pleased to introduce Dr. Chris Uxter, CPS Energy's Chief Operating Officer. I was wondering what that theme music was gonna be about. That's a good choice there. First of all, we all wanna thank everyone for coming out to this historical event. It truly is amazing, it's amazing to see, I think over 1,000 folks in the audience here today. So again, thank you very much for being a part of this. My personal story, I moved to San Antonio about eight years ago. It was a tough decision. Two eight-year-old boys moving the family after being 20 years in Houston. That was a big, big decision for us. I tell you, it was the best decision I've ever made in my life, so I'm just very happy here. And one of the things that really has struck me is CPS Energy is a true gem to the city. It's a company that cares deeply about the community. It's a company that's innovative and forward-thinking and it's a company that is a leader in the industry. So we have a lot to be proud of with CPS Energy and all the legacy that this represents. So with that, I'm gonna introduce the next video, which is the present state of CPS Energy. What you're gonna be doing is creating a legacy. And the legacy that you will create will be one that is associated with Mrs. Garcia on the west side and Mr. Smith on the north side. And you have to find a balance between the two such that they both can be able to afford their utilities and electricity bills over, not today, but in the future as well. And you're making decisions that don't necessarily affect your community in the next couple of years, the way you're sort of doing it for the next generation for your children and grandchildren. And so I'm just very proud to be part of that. I was born and raised here, I love San Antonio, so it's just a perfect way for me to serve my city. My district represents a lot of low-income people, especially senior citizens. And CPS Energy has been so innovative in getting people to be more energy efficient in their home. They've explained it in such a way that it can be understandable to everyone. Personally, the most significant success I think was improving, working with the employees, especially our craft, in improving employee safety. That's still the most important thing you can do in this business. And I've often thought that it's a measure of how much you care about people in the organization. Safety is basically people first. We're putting the safety of people first so they can come home to their families. But we can't leave anybody behind. It's all about everybody. It's all about the people and serving the people of the community. And that's what brings us all together and encases us in an actively caring culture. One of the things that I'm most proud of, of CPS Energy, is they've always been ready to go whenever we've had a situation with the weather. Our outages, we've had transformers fail. CPS Energy's ahead of it, they're calling me, forewarning me that you have issues, you have problems, how can we help. And they've been out. The middle of the storms, the middle of the night, they're showing up for us, they're helping with us. The guys out in the field really thrive on storm trouble and stuff like that and really get the people's lights on as fast as possible. When our guys and girls are out there fixing things in the middle of the night, we're doing it because these are the people that we care about. We have to be more engaged with our customers and communities so that we are doing what they need us to do, when they need us to do it, in the ways that they want. Making sure that we're actually making their lives better. I think that people first really is reflective of what I said a few moments ago in that these 3,000 employees are performing an incredible task in keeping this company so strong and so successful in every way. And I think Paula was really smart to recognize that that's what makes this company great and what makes it different is our employees. CPS Energy means loyalty and commitment. It has built, I have built a lifetime of memories and friendship. I know that everybody works as a team around here and they're just great workers inside and outside in the fields, it's just a wonderful group of people. I'm proud to be part of an organization that has promoted growth and development. Through CPS I've obtained my business of administration with a concentration in computer information systems. Coming to CPS Energy gave me an experience that I can probably say would have been like no other. First of all, I was a young African-American woman in an engineering career, already a standout, already one of a very few and being able to have almost immediately an extended family that by and large looked nothing like the family that I came from and who embraced me and helped me become a competent engineer and later on a competent leader of people was again an experience like very few others. I guess personally it was just my progression through the ranks and the ability to use my education and stuff to get promoted. I'm a legacy. My dad started working here in 1950. He retired in 1986, well I came on afterwards and my last name has been synonymous with CPS since 1950. We as employees have a choice to assist with all the different volunteer programs we have. We support various organizations and one that's very dear to my heart is our summer program for the students. So I've gotten to see these students come in year after year and work with us, learn. Even today at this retirees meeting they're gathering gifts, contributions for children in need. I think that's important and it's important that City Public Service staff participates in the needs of Santa Tony to that extent. We've got a special treat here in this next presentation so it's my great, great honor to welcome our wonderful Mayor, Mayor Ron Nirenberg. He is remote so we're gonna be testing some special CPS energy technology. Be patient with us so with that let's see if we can bring up the connection with the mayor. Mayor? Mayor? And I'm coming to you from a land far, as you know, CPS energy has harnessed the power of the force. So much so that they figured out how to have me in two places at once. Mayor Ron Nirenberg, you don't need to see my identification and I'm coming to you from a land far, far away. As you know, CPS energy has harnessed the power of the force. So much so that they figured out how to have me in two places at once today. Power me up, CPS energy. CPS energy leaders and stakeholders. For 75 years you have served our community with distinction. Today we thank you for that service and recognize the critical role you continue to play in ensuring a resilient San Antonio. I regret that I am unable to present this message in person but I am currently on an important trade mission in the cities of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Darmstadt. Our mission there will help our city grow its entrepreneurial class, foster startups that make our economy more resilient and expand opportunities for our residents. And I'm happy to report that mission is succeeding. Today, nevertheless, I come to you with an important message and it is vital to the future of our city. CPS energy has been responsive to customer demands and evolving environmental attitudes. It is your dedication to technology, including the fully operational smart grid initiative that has helped boost efficiency, reduce costs and better integrate renewable sources of power into the grid and reduce emissions. This technology has also given customers more control in helping us meet 21st century energy demand. It has moved us out of the dark side and into the light. In my first few weeks as mayor, Paula Gold Williams stood alongside me and council colleagues as we announced a three-way partnership between the utility, the city of San Antonio and UTSA. Together, we developed a climate action and adaptation strategy that will make San Antonio a leader in sustainable initiatives and renewable technology. Thank you for your dedicated work over the years. We must continue to work together, all of us, along with CPS energy, on our shared resilience and sustainability goals. By moving away from fossil fuels and placing a greater emphasis on clean energy strategies, we will work together to place our city ahead of the curve. As we have seen across this continent and across the globe, resilience is critical and will impact how prepared we are to weather any upcoming storm. Together, we must remain focused and proactive. Happy 75th anniversary, CPS energy. As we look forward, I know this will be our finest hour. Hello, we have a... Help us, CPS energy. You're our only hope. We hear you, mayor. CPS energy is here to help. We're here. No, you didn't like my line? Would you like me to deliver it again so I can get a few laughs out there? We're here for you, mayor. CPS energy is here to help. Okay. Come on, you gotta have some fun. You guys, this is the changeover. See, we talked about past, present, and now we're into the future. So here I am on this side. Nice to see all of you over here. And we wanna keep the energy going this afternoon and I'd like to introduce you to the future of CPS energy and one of the newest members of our senior leadership team, Ed Fleming, CPS Energy's chief financial officer and treasurer. Thank you, Monica. And thank you all for coming today to celebrate the 75th anniversary with us. We really appreciate it. Today, so far, we have seen our past legacy that has made CPS energy what it is today. We have also looked at the electrifying present that we have today. Now we're gonna look at the future. The future for the industry and CPS energy is both exciting and challenging. We have to deliver, of course, clean and efficient energy to our community in light of changing world events and everything that's affecting the energy industry. So without further ado, let's look at the future. We took that first step into alternative energy when we bought some wind power out of West Texas. Since then, they've been buying some out of South Texas also. So it was the beginning of some alternative energy resources, renewable ones. Part of this is we've gotta embrace that change and make sure that we provide our customers options, choices, new products, new services so that they can engage in how power gets generated, consumed, delivered in the future. We're the only city I know that's really seriously thinking about distributive energy. And what that means is you can put a solar unit on every house, every building that there is, they all are collecting the sun, transferring it, with the use of an intelligent grid. They're feeding into the system and in my opinion, if you haven't seen nothing yet. The future for CPS energy, in my view, is challenging because the industry is evolving faster than we have public policy keeping up. I think the future we all agree on is one that's sustainable, it's more renewable. It's also one that is more decentralized which is gonna challenge us to be creative and innovative especially as we are a city-wide, beyond city-wide energy utility. If we can get ahead of the curve, we can make it so that our utility is not only more sustainable but it's creating jobs in other industries and that's something I'm very interested in. Epicenter is a nonprofit where the result of a collaboration with CPS Energy and its new energy economy partners. So imagine a think tank, a new energy incubator, potentially an accelerator, exhibit space, a fabrication laboratory right on site where you can test and prototype and do those wonderful things you need to do. And then finally, a big conference center where you could host summits and conferences that talk about innovation in new energy. The absolute vision around Epicenter, what that will mean in terms of shining a light on San Antonio as a new energy innovation center. You know, other cities are known for other things. There's one to the north that people talk about a lot but I know because of the vision of CPS Energy and the folks that they work with will be on the map in an even greater way, particularly in new energy. I'm very excited from the standpoint of our new board member, John Steen, was the one that raised that opportunity to us. Last year when he joined the board, he said, hey, do you know you're at 74 and you're about to be at 75? And we move so much, I'm thinking in terms of 156 years, not really thinking about it. And then when it all really kind of dawned on us, we realized that we have a great opportunity. Right now the industry is changing, but at the same time we can talk about the rich heritage we've had for 75 years being totally connected to our community and working with our city councils, working with our mayors, working with our boards to do the right thing for that long and still be a AA to AA rated plus company that it's not just about the financials, it's about the strength of the management team, about the success in the way that we've implemented assets, how we operate. That's the testament to do that 75 years is an amazing milestone and I'm just fortunate to be here right at this point. Happy 75th anniversary, CPS Energy. Happy 75th anniversary, CPS Energy. Hey, happy birthday, CPS Energy. Feliz Anniversario, CPS. Happy 75th anniversary, CPS Energy. Happy 75th anniversary, CPS Energy. Happy 75th anniversary, CPS Energy. As we contemplate the future, I find it very exciting to look at the different directions that we're debating and looking at going forward in and continue to serve our community. I'd like to change the subject now and introduce Mr. Ed Kelly. Mr. Ed Kelly is our board chair of our board of trustees. Mr. Kelly previously served as president and CEO of USAA Real Estate. He retired in 2005 after 17 years of service. Let's welcome Mr. Ed Kelly. First, let me say what a pleasure it is to be here today and it would be hard for me to express to you the honor that I feel in being the chairman of this great company. I continue to tell my colleagues and friends in the business world that I feel that I'm standing on the shoulders of some outstanding leaders of the past and I've seen a number of those folks here today. You know who you are. You know what you've contributed to this great company and I just want you to know how I feel indebted to you for the great work that you've done. You saw a few moments ago about some of the opportunities that we have as a company going forward and indeed we do. But the wild card to me in all of this is leadership. We are fortunate in San Antonio. We have a great city. We are now one of the growth cities of the future is being recognized across the country. So we have that. We are owned by the city of San Antonio for the last 75 years. That's a great positive. The city of San Antonio has the highest bond rating of any city in the country. We have great resources in San Antonio. We have a great legacy of service through CPS Energy. So we have an awful lot of things going for us. But what will sustain us into the future is leadership. That's the key. That's the differentiator in my mind between companies that fail and those that are successful. So as we look at the challenges and the opportunities that were depicted on the screen a few moments ago, it's exciting to think of the things that lie ahead of us. How we can further merge our existing generation of coal, nuclear, gas with the new generation that we're going to see in solar, geothermal wind and other factors. But again, it takes a quarterback, a cohesive management team to pull all of that together. And then we have the great potential of battery storage. If in fact we can do the things to perfect that, it could change the whole paradigm in terms of how this company and others will operate in the future. So we have these great challenges, these great opportunities, but do we have the leadership that can take us into that area? Well, I think we do. And so I want to just take a second to introduce our CEO who I think has been doing and will continue to do a great job. Let me tell you a little bit about the fact that she won this position in a fair fight across the country. You might recall that our previous CEO, Donald Bennaby announced that he was leaving the company about almost three years ago. And at that point, we needed obviously some continuity. So we asked Paula Gold Williams, who was our chief financial officer and CFO, if she would step into an interim role and run the company. And she agreed to do that. Then at that point, myself and trustee, Derek Howard, who I suspected here today, but I haven't seen Derek yet. You saw him on the screen earlier. We retained the Corn Ferry Company, which is one of the leading executive recruiting firms in the country to help us find a new leader for CPS Energy. And indeed, we worked for the better part of a year interviewing some of the finest executives in this industry across the country. And we saw some outstanding individuals. But it all of a sudden dawned on us that the company was also running very, very well under the interim leadership of Paula Gold Williams. And so what Derek and I decided to do was start using Paula as the measuring stick against the other candidates that we were looking at. And as we did that, Paula just kept rising to the top. Not that we didn't see some incredibly strong executives across the country, we did. But I could not find, and Derek could not find, anything that distinguished them significantly from the great leader that we had in place. So after almost a year of searching, we decided that we had our own crown jewel right here within the ranks of the company. And so we asked Paula if she would become the CEO. Fortunately, she accepted that challenge. She has now been heading up the company for almost a year and a half, has done an incredible job, has put together a whole new management team to support the company, and has adopted the credo of People First. And I have watched Paula, as chairman of the company, I have an opportunity to work with Paula a lot. And People First to her is not simply a slogan. She means it. She has really taken the employees to heart. She's taken the customers to heart. She does things that I've always said, doing things right for the right reasons. And so that People First philosophy is starting to really show up in customer satisfaction and other things. So I'm honored to submit the outstanding performance that we're getting from Paula Gold Williams. And I'd like to bring her to the podium at this point. Paula? Paula, you got to be real, to be my girl. What my song would be. I do miss him. So you've heard so much in a theme about who we are and how proud we are of everyone in this room. And so I'm not going to talk about, I'm not going to talk a long time. That's my biggest gift to you. But I will talk about a few things. I want to start by saying thank you. From the 3,000 employees, 3,000 about 200, they're not all here. A lot of them are here. You see them in all forms. You see them with their blues on. They work hard for this community out of their passion. But our business is 24-7, 365, and they're all over the city. And they can't all be here. But on their behalf, I want to thank each and every one of you for showing your support of CPS Energy and giving us the honor to serve you. We hear sometimes that we are the only game in town. There aren't others in this community. But we don't take that for granted. We know that we have to earn and fight and work hard every day to be able to be your energy company. It was a gift. I also like to say a couple of other things, too. When I go out and I meet with people across town in particular, they say, Paula, where are you from? Where did you come from? And I said, I came from here. I'm a San Antonian through and through. I grew up. I was born here at Wilford Hall. I'm a military dependent forever. Military has been so much and so meaningful to this community, but to my life personally, I grew up on the east side of town. Sometimes I'm a pretty darn blunt. And I'll say, I was a poor little black girl on the east side who didn't know it. And when I go back to Sam Houston, I often look around and I see myself. I see a kid who really had no clue about business or what it took to serve. But I did know I lived in a great community. And I did know, maybe not as consciously, that CPS Energy was a great place. I have been a customer like you from the very beginning. And I've had the opportunity now to come on board initially as a CFO, but now as a CEO. Something I never, ever thought would happen. Some people run into me and they also say, well, how did you make that plan? How did you make a step? How did you get to where you are? And I would tell you, I had no idea from the moment I started working at Ernst & Winnie that I would end up leading CPS Energy. It has been one step after another, appreciative, making plenty mistakes along the way, bathing myself in those mistakes, but always saying yes to the opportunity to learn and serve and bring other people along with me. So somehow, some way, my current board that I'm extremely proud of and thankful, they gave me an opportunity to fill in a gap. As being interim, I didn't think that the company should be missing a leader. Not that they need a leader. The 3,200 employees, they do their job every day regardless of who leads. But what I didn't want them to do is worry about who was gonna be there. I wanted them to know that it was somebody who's been in San Antonio, somebody who had been working with them for over 10 years at the time and that we were gonna make it through one way or another. So as Ed said, one thing led to another and I got the major opportunity to now run this company. And I have a great senior leadership team. You've saw most of them. I do wanna point one person out. Karen Kirwin is our most recent senior chief. Karen, where are you? Thank you, Karen is our new CIO. And she's really exciting and you will see her in the future. So I'll start to close out but talk to you a little bit about the future. The interesting thing, the other thing we say around the organization, I'm unfortunate, I get to run an engineering analytics firm and I'm not an engineer. But the interesting thing is we say if Thomas Edison was to show up today, he would recognize our company completely. The infrastructure is about the same. We've got generating units, we've got transmission lines, the big lines that are really, really important and then those transition to distribution lines and they go to every business home and organization in San Antonio. And if he walked in, he'd go, I get it. And so accordingly, when you work in an organization where we have perfected the ability to make big, big investments and for them to last a very long time and have an organization that knows how to repair them, maintain them, bring them up in a storm, really be there for you, we know how to optimize the economies of scale. We know how to take one big investment and let it last 30, 40, 50 years and we are excellent at it. Now, here's what's happening as you heard today. Technology is changing. Whether it be on the energy side where we have distributed generation, where you have the ability to put assets on your house, solar units, battery storage is coming but at least you can get some bridge battery units and more and more technology on the energy side, that is gonna happen at a faster pace. On the other side, you have general technology. You've got your phones and on your phones, you have so much power, you have more power in your phones than the big processing mainframes had. When you put both of those movements and technology together, they're going to converge inside of the energy industry, not just San Antonio globally and it's gonna change the business, it's gonna change how you access things, it's gonna change the world. But here's the thing, we have a long rich legacy and we're gonna be able to do it, I think, better than anybody because we've made these investments, we understand what it is to be San Antonio, we know how to get all the value out of the existing assets, they are still extremely valuable. Everything we've got is extremely valuable and we're gonna make sure that we run them the best way we can and we're gonna maintain those and then we're gonna add on the new technology and we're gonna give you blended solutions and we're gonna make it affordable and we're gonna make it interesting and ultimately you're gonna have, as our Chief Customer Engagement Officer says, we're gonna have solutions at your fingertips when you want it, how you want it. What you have us for is to figure out how to do it and make it the transition smooth and that's what we'll do. And as we step up, that was offerings and as we change the foundation of the city to be a place where it reacts to your movements, where lights pop on because cars are coming down the street, where lights brighten up when they see pedestrians or ultimately change the ambience, we can do architectural lighting, we can do all kinds of things, we can have sensors that help us figure out traffic flows, we can work via, we can have sensors that talk about the admissions, not just from power plants, but from cars. All of those things are gonna allow us to control, modulate and make our city even more beautiful. That is the future. You will find me talking more and more about what that looks like, what the transition looks like, we want your input, we want your thoughts, we wanna hear what you like and what you want us to work on. We are your energy company. More to come. I'll close with this, you're gonna, we're almost there, but I'll close with this. We are about to put together a simple campaign to share with you how we feel about this community. CPS Energy has been the power company since 1860 when there were only 8,000 people. Theoretically, if you thought about it, like one eighth of the people would be in this room back in 1860, that would be it. But along the way, we don't say that, we do anything else but enable. We make sure the power runs, power is important. Power is going to, it's going to energize everything you do, including your electric vehicles, which they're making an electric truck, which is important to San Antonio, right? So from that perspective, we feel like we have been powering dreams. You are the people who have been leading this community for a very long time. From our great retirees to the people who are no longer here, who set the process in motion for us to be an asset of the company, all we did was bring that power to them so they can make a difference for our community. And we are proud to do that. And what we really want to tell you is that we want to be your energy company for the next 157 years, powering the dreams and the creativity that you have. We are here for you. Thank you, thank you, thank you again for the honor to serve. I can't help it, I always say this and it's true, hashtag my boss rocks. It is such a pleasure to work with Paula and for Paula because she really believes in what she says and she is who she is and it makes it even better and makes me more proud to work for CPS Energy. It really does. She was talking about powerful moments. She had some powerful words. So it is now time for our power-up moment. In the very beginning, I talked about these lovely little bracelets that we put right there to the left of your plate. If you haven't put yours on yet, please do at this time. And we're gonna ask you to power up this room together because we all power the dreams of tomorrow for San Antonio and our community. So I'm going to ask for finding Friday our great band to give us a drum roll. So three, two, one. Now for time to brush the back If this thing caught right Double bang the brakes Turn up the double Flash on my day and night All the time, seven, four, three Alicia Etheridge mentioned to us we can use these for walking our dogs and also Halloween's around the corner. So you might want to take these home for your kids or nieces and nephews. So see, there is a reason, these are reusable for you to take it home. And speaking of taking it home, we talk about powering dreams and the power to dream message. And we want to turn your attention to the screen to view a message about powering dreams. We're so proud to have one of our very own customers who genuinely has one of the biggest hearts and is so dedicated to this community. And he was kind enough to share the message. Mr. Gordon Hartman, we'll have you realizing there are so many dreams being powered by the people of San Antonio every day. Please take a look at the screens. When I had a dream of creating a place where all children of any ability could participate, it was just that, a dream. And the old quarry that would become Morgan's Wonderland, there was nothing but rock, literally. Not an energy grid, infrastructure, power lines, nothing. But when I met with CPS and discussed the energy support I needed for what I wanted to create, my dreams became their dreams. As our teams worked together, CPS Energy became a trusted partner in making my dream a reality. They went above and beyond to supply the energy we needed. And they are right alongside me as my dream continues to grow. I'm Gordon Hartman, Morgan's dad and CEO of the Gordon Hartman Family Foundation. CPS Energy, power to dream. I have seen that countless times, and these are tears of joy. It's incredible. And that's what we're talking about, powering dreams. Everyone in this room has the ability to power someone's dream. Whether it's your own or someone else's, this is what this day was all about, in celebration of powering dreams. So when you leave today and walk out those doors, I hope you got the opportunity to enjoy the past as you came in with our living timeline, because when you leave, you're about to see our future. Thank you so much for being here. And as we leave, I want to say thank you again for powering dreams.