| This year, Craig Ivey won the top honor for Career Achievement in Industry at the Black Engineer of the Year Awards Conference, the largest U.S. gathering of black technical professionals. LISA BILLINGS |  |
When a labor union president says nice things about a company manager, you know the manager must be a truly nice guy.
Jack Wells, president of Local 50 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, has kind words for Craig Ivey, vice president of electric operations for Dominion Virginia Power. Wells' local represents 3,400 Dominion workers.
In a letter to the selection committee for the 2004 Black Engineer of the Year Awards, Wells described Ivey as "fair, honest and communicative." Ivey, Wells wrote, has strengthened the relationship between the union and the utility by his involvement in labor-management discussions.
Jimmy D. Staton, senior vice president for operations at Dominion Virginia Power, concurred.
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"He has sought to change [the company's] culture by finding ways to listen and apply feedback for employees and by radically redefining our union relationships," Staton wrote to the awards committee.
In February, Ivey traveled to Baltimore to pick up the top award for Career Achievement in Industry at the Black Engineer of the Year Awards Conference, the nation's largest gathering of black technical professionals.
In his acceptance speech, Ivey, 43, related the obstacles that he had to overcome before embarking on his career. In particular, he acknowledged the example set by his mother, who rose before daylight every morning to work as a short-order cook to support her eight children.
"I grew up in a place where poverty, racism and despair were apparent at every turn," he said. "Lots of mothers, few fathers. In Ida Ivey's house," he wrote, "was the expectation that you not only rise above but also create a beacon for those who follow."
Ivey set an example of hard work and achievement, first as a young man growing up in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., and later as a utility manager. He was the first black inducted into the National Honor Society at Roanoke Rapids High School, a distinction he achieved while working up to 35 hours per week bagging groceries at the local Kroger.
He attended college with the help of an aca demic scholarship and earned an electrical engineering degree. He has been with Dominion Virginia Power (known as North Carolina Power in that state) for his entire 20-year career. He began work for the company as a college intern to help pay for his education.
Asked about his mentors, Ivey mentioned his mom and then former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. He relates to Powell because of his modest background, and he admires Powell's communications skills. His mother, Ivey said, taught him how to be a good man, a good father and a good husband.
Ivey got his drive from his mother, he said. Four of her children attended college and all eight are productive citizens, something of which she was proud, he said. His mother died in 2003.
As his mother did before him, he rises early and is generally at work by 5:30 a.m. He likes to spend a couple of hours of quiet time in the mornings and then spends much of the rest of the day talking with people.
He is responsible for Dominion Virginia Power's overall electric operations and control of its distribution systems, which serve more than 2 million customers in Virginia and North Carolina. He oversees the utility's storm center, its construction activities and its meter-reading operation.
Two to three times a year, Ivey tries to visit each of the company's field offices to talk with managers and employees. Occasionally, he meets with employees in small groups without their supervisors in the room.
Among the lessons he has learned as a manager are to be consistent with people, to be straightforward and to try to understand the worker's world -- the pulse of the organization, Ivey said.
During the next few years, Ivey will be involved in rebuilding the utility work force. In five years, one in every five Dominion Virginia Power workers will be eligible to retire. Some changes in the business, such as the automation of meter reading, will make replacing them easier, but Ivey expects to find good people to replace those leaving the company.
"Leadership is about two primary things," Ivey said, "the results that you achieve and the way you achieve those results." You have to deliver results in the right way -- safely and by treating people fairly, he said.
Ivey said the company has been handling labor relations in a new way for the past year and a half. Labor and management used to sit on opposite sides of a table, stake out a position and squabble over issues. They now sit side by side and talk about each others' interests, he said.
"It just fundamentally changes the conversation," he said. "It has become part of the fabric of labor-management relations."
Ivey works hard but tries to be home for dinner with his family by 6:30.
For relaxation, he likes to dance or play cards, and he enjoys attending activities his children are involved in, such as marching-band performances, horseback-riding competitions and Little League ball games. A couple of years ago, he took up golf, a technical game that appeals to his engineering background.
Would this relatively young manager be interested in a position higher up the management pyramid? "My goal," he says tactfully, "is to continue to improve in my current role. There's still a lot to learn and a lot to do."
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