The City of Austin’s recruitment consultants are putting on a public meeting and here’s the scoop from the Public Information Office:

With the announced retirement of Austin Energy’s General Manager Roger Duncan for later this spring, the City is seeking input now about what the public wants in his replacement.

The public can provide its thoughts about the position’s recruitment profile at a meeting from 5 to 8 p.m. Monday, Jan. 25, with City officials and the firm that will be conducting the nationwide search for candidates to fill the job.

The come-and-go session will be at Austin Energy’s Workforce Planning and Development Office, 811 Barton Springs Road, Suite 100 . Free parking will be available at Austin Energy’s Town Lake Center garage, 721 Barton Springs Road .

The search firm is Colorado-based Mycoff, Fry and Prouse, LLC, which specializes in electric utility recruitment. Representatives from the City’s Human Resources Department and Austin Energy will also be at the meeting.

If you are unable to attend this stakeholders meeting, you may contact Scott Fry of the search firm to provide input. Call 1-800-525-9082 or e-mail, sfry@mfpllc.us.

For more information about the Jan. 25 meeting, contact (512) 974-3210.

My initial thoughts of what we need:

1. Operational Excellence.  We want someone with a proven track record in utility management that can point to some innovations they created.

2. Understanding AE’s role as a social enterprise.  AE should be more than a city department or a municipal utility.  It is a special type of enterprise, one where capital owners are not the reason for being.  The new manager should have respect for the socially-minded mission of AE, and hopefully have some experience with being an evangelist for this special role and way of fulfilling the needs of Austin consumers.

3. Selling an Energy Vision.   The manager should understand that in the future, AE needs to develop a business model that goes beyond producing an operating surplus.  Energy conservation, renewables, and distributed generation, net metering…and so on.  The person should express a vision that fits with AE’s need to break even, but also with Austin’s environmental and democratic aspirations.

4. Open Government.   Austin’s public sector would benefit from a high profile manager that engaged blogging, open data, crowd-sourcing (to name a few) and understood those tools’ ability to generate value for AE’s operations.

5. Diversity.  Sure, it would be nice if the new person was a woman or a person of color, but the right skill set is more important.  That said, part of that skill set needs to be experience with diverse communities and empathy for the many plights in this city.