PG&E CEO Peter Darbee stepping down

04.21.11 - 3:40 pm | Rebecca Bowe |

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Guardian illustration by Devon Doss

Word's out that Peter Darbee, the Chief Executive Officer of Pacific Gas & Electric Corporation, is stepping down. Darbee's departure comes amid a federal investigation into the deadly San Bruno pipeline explosion, which resulted in tragic loss of life, devastated an entire neighborhood, and served to highlight safety issues with the utility's vast network of underground gas transmission pipelines.

Longtime energy industry observer John Geesman, who blogged about PG&E's bid to eliminate community choice aggregation last year with the statewide ballot initiative Proposition 16, offered some rather interesting insights on Darbee in a series of posts last year. In one titled, "How Much of the Goldman Sach's Kool-Aid did PG&E's Peter Darbee Drink?", he reflected on Darbee's past experience on Wall Street: "Peter Darbee has been CEO of PG&E Corporation since 2005. He was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs from 1989 to 1994."

Darbee was one highly paid CEO. Geesman pointed out that he "massaged PG&E's internal system to produce a $10.6 million gusher for himself in 2009 -- that's 74 percent above the median for large utility CEOs measured in the Wall Street Journal's annual compensation survey."

Prop. 16 went down in flames, of course, after a majority of voters from PG&E's service territory rejected it (Darbee had this to say for himself in the aftermath). Yet that entire debacle was soon forgotten once the tragic Sept. 9, 2010 pipeline explosion occurred.

Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, issued this statement soon after Darbee's resignation announcement: “The CPUC today learned of the resignation of Mr. Darbee from PG&E Corp. While obviously the company under his leadership has been responsible for several poor and consequential decisions, Mr. Darbee’s commitment to PG&E and its constituents is unquestioned. As PG&E’s Board of Directors recruits a successor, the CPUC urges the company to return to its roots by hiring the most technically competent person; someone with a long-standing history of performance in the energy industry.”

The Chronicle's reporting that Darbee's retirement package will total $34.7 million.

When former PG&E Senior Vice President Nancy McFadden resigned at the end of last year, she was awarded a severance payment of $1,040,400, plus an undisclosed payout in stocks. McFadden was the architect behind Prop. 16, and she wasn't unemployed for long. In January, she was appointed to serve as Gov. Jerry Brown's Executive Secretary for Legislation, Appointments and Policy in the Office of the Governor. That job pays $175,000 per year.

This post has been updated from an earlier version.

Comments

Shock, horror, sensation. Read all about it.

Top 500 company makes management change.

The King is dead; long live the King.

Posted by Minty on Apr. 21, 2011 @ 4:40 pm

It's about time Darbee is

It's about time Darbee is gone the only way it could have been better is if he was escorted out of 77 Beale by corporate security. He was the absolutely the worst thing for PG&E as a whole. I personally feel the Ca. Public Utilities Commission investigate this crook. I would almost bet he didnt cover his tracks that well and I'm pretty sure they would find he swindled PG&E's customers by continuing to get the rates raised behind the guise of facility reinforcement & repair and pocketing the money.

Posted by Guest on Apr. 21, 2011 @ 6:26 pm

Agree, this is good news for CA and PG&E

I agree. Peter and Jack Keenan were bad news for the employees, ratepayers and stockholders. This is good news and let's hope PG&E does go back to its core roots.

Posted by Guest on Apr. 22, 2011 @ 3:49 pm

You Want PG&E To Go 'Back To Its Roots'? Of Pillage and Plunder?

PG&E was ripping off and screwing over Californians -long- before Peter Darbee arrived. In San Francisco PG&E outright illegally captured our electricity system a century ago, and has been making us pay it massive profits to use what was supposed to be a nonprofit municipal utility, ever since.

The real solution to the problem of the PG&E juggernaut is for the state to revoke its corporate charter, and then for the state and local municipalities to simply take over its entire assets and system as a publicly owned utility network.

This would also facilitate rapidly shifting California to renewable energy and efficiency soon enough to make a real impact on the global climate crisis; which PG&E is stubbornly and dangerously refusing to do.

Posted by Eric Brooks on Apr. 24, 2011 @ 4:18 pm

This is more Good News at PG&E

It is good for PG&E and CA that he is gone. It is also good that Jack Keenan bit the dust too. I hope PG&E does go back to its roots. Those guys were really bad news for the employees, stockholders, and ratepayers!!

Posted by Guest on Apr. 22, 2011 @ 3:45 pm

PG&E

Chris Johns needs to be next. These guys were all interested in spending the least amount of money in the field, where the power is produced. There is lots of money to go around for the yes men in the City but the rest of the poor saps working for a living were and still are badly treated. I hope they have an experienced CEO and CFO to take their places.

Posted by Guest on Apr. 22, 2011 @ 3:58 pm

Why should the men be the

Why should the men be the only scapegoats? Helen Burt queen of the SmartMeter campaign should be next. Hmmm, wonder how much her retirement will be.

Posted by Guest on Apr. 23, 2011 @ 3:41 pm

What's wrong with

What's wrong with Smartmeters? There's no legitimate health concern (San Francisco has installed smart water and parking meters and are asking for $8 million for their own smart power meters). The only reason for opposition for this *particular* SmartMeter program is hatred for PG&E.

Posted by Guest on Apr. 23, 2011 @ 10:17 pm

Nice try PG&E.

Go sell your bullshit somewhere else.

Posted by Guest on Apr. 24, 2011 @ 11:35 am

I agree with the other poster

I agree with the other poster about Helen Burt, the most incompetent person leading the Customer NON-Care organization. Helen is a vicious, incompetent bastard. I hope the new CEO will clean house -- first to go is this stupid Helen bitch and her coterie of incompetent, stupid underlings. Just the fact that someone like Helen Burt could get a job at PG&E should be a sign of how bad decisions were made in the past.

Posted by Guest on Apr. 24, 2011 @ 8:57 am

Helen Burt - throwing money at customers

Helen came on in 2006. Tell me customers how much more valued do you feel since then. Her solution to customer satisfaction is to pay people money, get a back bone lady and take credit for screwing up smart meter roll out.

Its simple, keep the lights on and keep the rates down.

You don't need to come up with a gimmick to make customers delighted, stop it with the smoke in mirrors. Wonder why she's been here since 2006, because she isn't qualified to go anywhere else. She's from Texas, and got a degree from ???? Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Print PageEmail PageRelease Date: February 16, 2006
Contact: PG&E News Department (415) 973-5930

Pacific Gas and Electric Company Elects Helen Burt Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer

SAN FRANCISCO - Pacific Gas and Electric Company's board of directors has elected Helen Burt as senior vice president and Chief Customer Officer for the utility, effective February 27.

Burt will be responsible for the overall management of the utility's customer service organization, including Account Services, Customer Contact and Credit Operations, Customer Energy Efficiency, Service Analysis and Billing, and Revenue and Records. She will focus on developing and implementing customer-centric, enterprise-wide business strategies to create customer experiences that will help define PG&E as a leading utility.

"Helen will play a critical role in driving our overall strategy of meeting and surpassing our customers' expectations," said Thomas King, president and chief executive officer of Pacific Gas and Electric Company. "With her help and guidance, we will succeed in our vision of becoming the leading utility in terms of customer service and satisfaction."

Burt is an experienced customer operations leader with 27 years of experience at TXU (previously known as Texas Utilities). Helen began her career at TXU as a customer service representative and concluded it as Vice President, Customer Billing and Operations at TXU Energy, with responsibility for all gas and electric customer service and a 2,000-person organization. Most recently, she worked with Bass and Company Management Consultants assisting energy and water industries with business process re-engineering, large-scale organizational change and technology integration to improve customer points of contact.

Burt holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Posted by Guest on May. 12, 2011 @ 11:10 pm

Helen Burt, Felicia Lokey,

Helen Burt, Felicia Lokey, Greg Pruett, and a bunch of other stupid PG&E executives need to go. Cannot wait for the new CEO to clean house and get rid of these stupid shits.

Posted by Guest on Jun. 19, 2011 @ 2:51 am

PG&E claw-back - how?

PG&Es failure to do their basic job - providing power consistently and safely to the public at the lowest possible prices was usurped by a management gone out of control. They paid no attention to engineering and safety and instead spent millions to support the failed initiative (Prop 16) designed to destroy the competition.

California, when will you wake up? These people are wolves ready to rip you off. They walk away with millions. They set up billing methods designed to redistribute wealth through your electric bill.

We can and must claw-back their illegal profits.

Let me know when you figure out what the hell we can do, if anything. More of the same stuff. Rich beating down the people, all the time pretending to do this in the name of "smart days" and the environment.

Posted by Guest TerryO on Aug. 30, 2011 @ 10:36 pm