Smart Business Magazine, October 2017
26 Smart Business Pittsburgh October 2017 COVER PEOPLES NATURAL GAS CO LLC I tell our employees every day that a business is only as strong as its relationships with its customers and that includes people who cant afford to pay their bill MORGAN OBRIEN PRESIDENT AND CEO PEOPLES NATURAL GAS CO LLC newly engaged employees which adds value for the owners of the business But its also personal for OBrien My thoughts were I want to have a legacy that says not only did we help the region grow but we did it the right way in a way that we would be proud of for our kids and our grandkids he says For example one challenge is infrastructure About one third of Peoples underground pipes were 60 to 100 years old with a high risk for failure Plus old pipes leak gas that can have a meaningful impact on air quality OBrien says not only did Peoples start a pipe replacement program it engaged with Carnegie Mellon University which had begun a federal research program on methane emissions and air quality Every month CMU researchers meet with Peoples engineers to discuss how to prioritize the pipe replacement to improve air quality Peoples also reached out to the Environmental Defense Fund which was mapping air quality in cities like Philadelphia Boston and New York by piggybacking detectors on Google mapping cars We called them and said Would you come to Pittsburgh and do that same map OBrien says They were I think surprised that a utility would ask them to help identify an issue not many people knew about At the projects press conference OBrien says Gov Tom Wolf pulled him aside and asked why the company was opening itself up to such criticism I said Were taking ownership of an issue thats important We want our legacy to be that we fixed it not that www instagram com peoplesnatgas http bit ly PeoplesNaturalGas_ YouTube
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