The Alabama Public Radio newsroom continues collaborating on the television show about business called “Alabama, Inc.” Would you pay ten thousand dollars for one good idea? I'll profile the President and C-E-O of Alabama Power and the challenge he put to young people in Birmingham.
“Well, gee Mark. Tell us what can we do to improve Birmingham.’”
That’s not your everyday question. But, Mark Crosswhite had a ten thousand dollar answer. He’s the C-E-O of Alabama power. His audience was the Birmingham youth group called Rotaract…
“I don’t care who comes up with it, who’s the author—come to us with your best idea and Alabama Power will help fund that idea and get it off the ground.”
That ten thousand dollar challenge is one example of the “out in the community” stuff that Crosswhite does. The Remington firearms company is another. The rifle maker was looking to move its New York factory someplace else, and Crosswhite wanted it in Alabama. He succeeded. Sort of…
“The only thing wrong with that story, from my perspective, is that Remington chose to locate near Huntsville and that’s not in our service area.”“
Oops.
“But our economic development folks don’t look at this way. They go into with the idea of we’re going to try to get that company in Alabama. We want them here, but if here doesn’t work for them, we want them in Alabama."
All of this might give you the impression that Crosswhite likes doing more than just counting kilowatts in his position at Alabama Power. But, that’s not the case. His first job as a summer legal clerk was in the utility section and he liked it and stuck with it.
“And they told me that I was the first person since the founding of the firm that wanted to be utility lawyer.”
That career path lasted a while at Alabama Power, until Charles McCrary called him into his office. At that time, McCrary was the C-E-O, and Crosswhite’s boss. “He went to Auburn for heaven’s sake, and I went to Alabama,” says Crosswhite.”So, there are some differences there.” And not just being graduates at cross state rival schools. McCrary was engineer and Crosswhite was a lawyer and he wanted Crosswhite to take on a new job. It took him out of his legal work and into external relations, which included a lot of public relations.
“It was great. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It exposed me to things that I had never ever seen before, It got me involved in things I had never done before. So, it was great!”
And that experience helped prepare him to become the CEO at Alabama Power, but only sort of. Crosswhite says there’s no boss handbook. “I been looking for that handbook. And it hasn’t surfaced. So, if Charles is watching, maybe he’ll send it to me.”
That job includes supplying electricity to almost one and a half million households in central and southern Alabama. A lot of that work takes place in a mission control room that looks like something out of NASA. Large television screen cover the walls with what looks weather maps. Except, instead of storm fronts, the moving maps show power flowing into and out of the state. On good days, everything’s fine and the lights come on, and then there’s last week when a squall line blew through Alabama... One hundred and fifteen thousand homes lost power when the storm blew through. Crews from Mississippi came in to help restore service. Before you ask, Crosswhite says when the power goes out at his house, the repairs trucks don’t go there first…
“No they do not,” says Crosswhite. “I’m the last on the list, I think. At least my wife does.”
Mark Crosswhite and I discuss how he got from here to there, on Alabama, Inc., this Wednesday night at 10 p.m. on your local Alabama Public Television station.
