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The Knoxville Utilities Board: Ensuring High-Quality, Sustainable Services for Decades to Come
KUB’s mission is about more than pipes and wires—it’s about being good stewards of the environment and its communities’ resources and safeguarding those for generations to come. (Pictured: KUB employee Dan Hurst.)
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he Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB) provides electric, natural gas, water, and wastewater services to more than 473,000 customers in Knoxville, Tennessee, and parts of seven surrounding counties. The utility service received the 2021 Sustainable Water Utility Management Award from the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA). Municipal Water Leader spoke with KUB President and CEO Gabe Bolas and Manager of Plant Operations Joshua Johnson about KUB’s operations, stewardship, and challenges. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions. Gabe Bolas: I am the president and CEO of KUB. I’ve been here for 26 years. I started as an entry-level engineer, working on the electrical side of our business, and over many years of leadership, I’ve been a part of all four of our utilities. As I got more experience and opportunities, I was able to step into the role of vice president and ultimately into that of president, which I have held for the last 3 years.
14 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | March 2022
Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about KUB. Gabe Bolas: We’re an independent agency of the City of Knoxville. We were created in 1939 as a standalone municipal utility. We are managed by a seven-member board appointed by the mayor. Our operations are independent, but the city has some oversight over us. Our board controls the rate-setting and decisionmaking part of our business. On the water side of the business, we serve 81,000 retail customers as well as two wholesale customers: Dandridge, a town northeast of us, and a utility district called Shady Grove. We provide them millions of gallons of water each day that they then deliver to their customers. Gabe Bolas: We have around 1,000 employees working at four utilities that serve different areas. Electric is our largest footprint; it serves 210,000 customers in parts of 6 counties. Gas is our second largest, with 110,000 customers; then water, with 81,000 customers; and wastewater, with 72,000 customers. We were just approved by the City of Knoxville to get into the fiber and broadband business. It was a no-brainer for us, given the demand created by the number of people working and learning from home during the COVID‑19 pandemic. We’ll hire 200 new employees over the next 5 years. We are municipalwaterleader.com
PHOTOS COURTESY OF KUB,
Joshua Johnson: I’ve been at KUB for 20 years. I’m the manager of plant operations. We own and operate four wastewater plants and one water treatment facility in and around Knox County. I came to KUB as a wastewater treatment plant operator. I started working shifts at the largest plant, Kuwahee. Then, after gaining experience at multiple plants, KUB assisted me in going back to college and earning
a degree in civil engineering from the University of Tennessee. I worked in natural gas engineering for a while before I came back as the manager of plant operations in 2017.
