According to the American Public Power Association (APPA), "one in seven Americans are served by a public power utility. More than 2,000 communities – in 49 states and 5 U.S. territories – have a public power utility." These utilities serve an incredibly important purpose in the communities where they are based, providing their customers with affordable, reliable power, gas, water, wastewater, and telecommunications services. From Feb. 2020 through the summer of 2023, I served as a member of Gainesville Regional Utilities' (GRU) Utility Advisory Board (UAB), a volunteer citizen body that advises Gainesville's City Commission on issues related to the utility. Given GRU's status as one of Florida's largest public utilities, I have been interested in how our governance practices compare with other utilities throughout the nation. As part of my pursuit of a Master of Arts in Education in Educational Technology at the University of Florida, I compared GRU's orientation program for its UAB members to the practices of other APPA member utilities.
For the first part of my study, I documented the current orientation program for GRU UAB members as of the summer of 2022. This orientation included meetings, presentations, and facility tours with a wide variety of GRU staff and leadership, as well as educational resources and opportunities provided by the APPA.
Next, I sought the assistance of the APPA with the creation and distribution of a survey related to utility board orientation procedures. The results of my survey are presented, alongside relevant results from the APPA's 10th Governance Survey, conducted in 2021.
Finally, I completed follow-up interviews with several of the utility representatives who responded to my initial survey. A summary of those interview findings is presented along with a series of recommendations for utility board orientation best practices from an Instructional Design perspective. Below is a summary of these recommendations.
A more detailed discussion and justification for each of these recommendations can be found on my Analysis page.
The orientation process should be designful and iterative.
A committee of stakeholders, including utility leadership and staff, plus board members of varying experience, should regularly evaluate and revise the orientation goals, procedures, and materials to help prepare members for the dynamic nature of this position and to ensure the buy-in of all participants.
Generate learning objectives for the orientation.
Without clearly articulated learning objectives, we cannot know if we are succeeding in our efforts to prepare board members for their job duties. Every other aspect of the orientation, from the content to how it is delivered and assessed, should refer back to these objectives. I have provided some generalized objectives that may be useful to orientation planners on the Analysis page.
Provide Board members with a comprehensive orientation information packet.
I have provided a table (Question #5) that ranks the items most commonly found in the board orientation packets that I have reviewed. This packet should also include relevant resources such as APPA's Governing for Excellence handbook. Though some members may also request hard copies, I recommend use of a cloud-based web portal that can be more easily searched, organized, updated, and shared.
Provide facility tours and meetings with key personnel.
In addition to orientation materials, members should be provided with simple online presentations that provide an overview of each of the utility's major service areas. These can be reviewed on the members' own time and followed up with short meetings with key personnel and leadership to allow for follow-up questions, updates, and discussion. Where feasible, facility tours should also be included as part of the orientation.
Utilize a concept-related sequencing approach paired with a mastery learning methodology.
Members should first be exposed to general knowledge related to the utility profile as well as regulations and procedures governing the utility and its board. This information can be provided asynchronously via online presentations and then practiced using simple formative assessments, such as completion of short answer, matching, and/or multiple choice questions. Once learners have demonstrated mastery of these concepts or been offered additional learning supports as needed, they can then be exposed to more complex and in-depth study of the individual service/s that the utility offers and the staff affiliated with these services, and ultimately, exposure to future projections and planning scenarios. These latter topics can be illustrated through the use of more open-ended local case studies whereby learners review, analyze, explain, and assess previous decisions that have been made by the utility and its board. Utility staff and/or leadership should be available to discuss these case studies with the learners.
Offer continuing education opportunities.
The utility industry is expansive and currently in a state of rapid change. As such, continuing education is a must. Whether these opportunities are provided by the local utility or via membership organizations such as the American Public Power Association's (APPA) annual national conference or its regular on-demand trainings on a wide variety of topics, board members should be strongly encouraged to take part and should be provided the resources to do so.