ADVERTISEMENT
Debra Smith of Seattle City Light: Planning for an Electric Future
Diablo Dam, located on the upper Skagit River in Whatcom County, Washington, is one of the three major dams of Seattle City Light’s Skagit River Hydroelectric Project.
D
Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
8 | HYDRO LEADER | July/August 2022
Debra Smith: I usually say that I fell into this industry quite by accident. My background is in finance. I worked for a bank and then for a small computer company in Eugene, Oregon, for 9 years. I also spent a year as a stay-at-home mom of three little kids. I thought I wanted to go back to school, and I applied to get my master’s at Oregon. Meanwhile, my family said, “You’re really not a very good stay-at-home mom. You should find something to do.” One day, another mom told me that her husband’s employer, the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB), was hiring for a job share in accounting. I applied and started at EWEB in January 1996 as a senior staff accountant. Power risk management began to emerge as an important area of focus, and since I was only working half time in accounting, I was able to step up and learn new skills. EWEB had a trading floor, but at that time, most trading was done through bilateral agreements. As the energy markets became mature, power risk management hydroleadermagazine.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SEATTLE CITY LIGHT.
ebra Smith brings years of experience in finance, risk management, and running utilities to her current role as the general manager and CEO of Seattle City Light. The utility serves a population of nearly a million and gets 86 percent of its energy from hydropower. Seattle City Light is amid a major push toward electrification, which will help decarbonize the local economy and transportation system while also improving the utility’s finances over the long term. Meanwhile, like many utilities across the nation and the world, it is experiencing major challenges related to supply chain disruptions and labor shortages created by the COVID‑19 pandemic and geopolitical shocks such as the war in Ukraine. In this interview, Ms. Smith tells us about how Seattle City Light is facing up to these challenges and planning for the future.
