MLGW CEO J.T. Young to leave for Florida utility

Memphis, Light, Gas, and Water CEO J.T. Young will leave the city of Memphis-owned utility for a position at his previous employer, Florida Power & Light.

Young's resignation will be effective Oct. 14, according to a news release. Young's departure comes on the heels of the MLGW CEO recommending that the utility stay with Tennessee Valley Authority as its electricity supplier after a four-year evaluation of other options. He also successfully raised utility rates for needed infrastructure improvements.

The past two years have brought a pair of infrastructure crises, a water boil advisory in 2021 and ice storm-triggered electric outages this year that challenged the utility and emphasized the importance in improving infrastructure.

The utility has also faced criticism for how slowly it reopened the lobbies of its community offices after the COVID-19 pandemic. The offices will reopen Oct. 3.

"This is an incredible community. The Memphis community has incredible people. It's got an incredible spirit. And I can only say how grateful I am to Mayor Strickland, the City Council and the board at MLGW for their confidence in me," Young said Friday morning.

Young had previously worked for what was then Gulf Power – later absorbed by Florida Power & Light -- before coming to Memphis. The company is in his hometown of Pensacola, Florida. He will run FPL’s Northwest Florida region, which includes Pensacola, as vice president and general manager.

“We are pleased to have J.T. return to Northwest Florida to join our leadership team as we continue to deliver on our commitment to bring FPL’s value proposition to our employees, customers and communities in the region,” said FPL Chairman and CEO Eric Silagy. “J.T.’s depth and diversity of experience and his spirit for the people of Northwest Florida, a place he considers home, make him the right leader for this new role.”

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland praised Young for his time leading MLGW.

"J.T. has led MLGW with integrity, humility and strength...," Strickland said. "I know he and his family will do well back home in Pensacola."

Greater Memphis Chamber CEO Beverly Robertson said, "J.T. Young has thoughtfully led Memphis Light, Gas and Water through difficult times with a solid understanding of the crucial role MLGW plays in our economic growth. The Greater Memphis Chamber is grateful for his leadership."

Opportunity to return home came in the past few weeks

Young, during a news conference Friday, noted that the new job would bring him closer to family, his eldest son and his 97-year-old mother.

"We talk twice a day but I feel like it will be a great opportunity for me spend some more time being closer to her," Young said. "It's just a blessing to be able to get back in that community and really help serve wherever I can."

The opportunity to return to Pensacola materialized in late August and was finalized in early September, Young said. That meant as the utility prepared to make its decision with TVA public, Young was finalizing a future elsewhere.

Succession plan not clear

It is not immediately clear who will run MLGW when Young departs. The MLGW CEO is the lone utility employee appointed by the Memphis mayor. The utility and the city did not immediately provide an answer to the question.

Young said he met with Strickland and MLGW Board Chair Mitch Graves to discussion succession plans but offered little else.

"We had a conversation around that transition. I suspect that by the time I leave, that will be very very clear. I don't expect it to be disruptive at all.... I don't know the person who will be in it, whether that that'll be for an interim period or not," Young said.

Young leaves as power supply process concludes

Young’s tenure in Memphis began and ended with the utility’s evaluation of leaving TVA. He faced early pressure from a private company led by businessman Franklin Haney to purchase power from an unfinished nuclear plant in Alabama.

The pitch was, after a time, not well-received by the new chief executive. Young once told the Memphis Business Journal that Haney’s company and its claims about the deal offered gave him “heartburn.”

That pressure, which first began in private after Young took the job in early 2018 and then became public that same October, forced Young and MLGW to study whether the utility should split from TVA.

However, MLGW went down the path to studying whether it, TVA’s largest customer, should leave the federal power provider after 80-plus years.

That consideration prompted a shift in how TVA, a company locals had long perceived as neglectful of Memphis, treated the city.

Young and the MLGW executives first embarked on integrated resource plan process – a long-term study of what electricity could need over the next 30 years. Then the utility faced a challenging path to select a consultant that would run the bidding on its electricity supply – known by the term request for proposals.

Heavy lobbying and calls from U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a longtime friend of Haney’s, caused the Memphis City Council to defeat a contract with GDS Associates and threw the power supply process into limbo. MLGW wanted to bid out its power supply but had no means of doing it.

That winter, after widespread blackouts in Texas and no company to run the bidding process, Young recommended MLGW’s evaluation of leaving TVA stop. TVA spent days hyping up those blackouts, highlighting it as a risk

However, he was stymied and Strickland, who has sought to remain neutral throughout the power supply process, revived the GDS Associates contract early in 2021 and brokered a deal that got the contract through the City Council.

The power supply bidding lasted for more than a year and concluded earlier this month with GDS and Young recommending that MLGW stay with TVA, which critics said was expected. Haney’s company, which bid on Memphis power supply and lost, has appealed the utility’s decision and argued that MLGW was biased toward TVA.

The utility has decided to sign a long-term, perpetual contract with TVA that must be approved by its board and then the City Council. No vote has been scheduled yet for either. Community groups have called for a longer public comment period before any votes are held on the TVA contract.

Young said Friday during the news conference he expected the public comment period to last several more weeks. He also said he wished he could've seen it to its conclusion.

"I definitely would love to see it to fruition," Young said. He also said he believes signing a long-term, perpetual contract with TVA represented the most value and the least risk.

He also responded to the frequent criticism that has come from those who have wanted MLGW to leave TVA -- that he is biased toward the federal power provider.

"If I was biased to TVA, I would have -- and I had the ability to do this -- have done all I could to keep us going through the last three and a half or four years of expenses and time and effort to really go out to the marketplace and get pricing on alternatives," Young said.

"I hear that and I understand some may feel that way... I can't really control what others think. I can just let folks know what's true and they can choose to believe that or not."

Samuel Hardiman covers Memphis city government and politics for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by email at samuel.hardiman@commercialappeal.com or followed on Twitter at @samhardiman.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: JT Young, Memphis Light, Gas, and Water CEO to leave utility