Episode 134: EPCOR Utilities, electricity, water and leadership, with John Elford

[MUSIC] Absolutely the latter. You need to be really deliberate about leadership and how leadership drives culture and the path forward for the organization. I always tell our teams across the company that at all levels, leadership and people are probably the most important asset we have. [MUSIC] Francis here from electricity Canada. Welcome to another episode of the flux capacitor, a podcast about the future of electricity. This is number 134, episode 134 of the flux capacitor. I have been chatting with the industry's business leaders, thought leaders, new market players and stakeholders. I've built this as an opportunity for you, the listener, to get a sense of the conversations that are taking place in the sector. In hallways, over coffee, outside of parliamentary committees, in airport lounges, and at industry events. My guest on the podcast today is John Alfred, President CEO of Epcotritilities. John joined me for lunch and a conversation about Epcot, the Alberta market and future prospects of the sector. We talk about challenges including supply chain issues, grid resiliency and affordability amid increasing electrification and decarbonization. John emphasizes the importance of leadership, culture and employee development in driving the company's success. We closed the conversation with three book recommendations. Here is my conversation with John Alfred, recorded in Edmonton in late February, 2026. [MUSIC] Here we are at a restaurant for a change for today's podcast. John delighted that you were able to make the time to chat because I notice a lot of stuff happening and a lot of things on the go in your world. I thought maybe let's start off for the listener, just that brief description of Epcot because you're a unique company. I don't think there's another company in Canada that has the same kind of mix of assets and customers that you do. So what's Epcotritilities all about? >> Yeah, so a bit about Epcot and kind of how we got here. Formed in 1996, really the genesis of the spinning out of the City of Edmonton's electrical department and water department into a standalone,� a municipal controlled corporation. We've always established on a basis of owned completely by the City of Edmonton but completely independently governed. Our board is fully arms-length, so we're governed on an arms-length basis and we're managed independently. What that's allowed us to do over the last 30 or so years is grow that footprint from an Edmonton-based water and electrical utility to now an North American utility that does business in Fort Canadian provinces through US states. We're largely across our two primary lines of business being electricity, water and wastewater and then a small presence in natural gas. About 80% of that in rate-regulated utilities. The other 20% is a bit of a unique space that we plan which is contracted utility like infrastructure that we provide under long-term design-built finance, operate contracts, both with municipalities as well as industrial counter parties. Think of a P3 for a wastewater treatment plant as an example of what that might look like or a transmission line under 30 year D.B.F.A. will contract with the industrial counter-party. That's not a structure that we see anywhere else in this country, first off in terms of the lines of businesses that you live in. But also your geographic footprint. But the City is still the shareholder, the City of Edmonton is the shareholder, so it's the shareholder running businesses in Fort provinces and through states. How complex is that for you as a CEO responding to a shareholder here in Edmonton by subject to regulators and stakeholders all across North America? That's going to be a bit of a dance sometimes, right? It's complex but a lot of it really comes back to the sanctity of the government's model. So when I say that our shareholder owns 100% of the corporation, they have certain things that as shareholder they will vote on and approve. But the vast majority of the governance is all handled by our board. Our board is completely independent. There are no elected officials on our board. Not. It's a completely skilled but skills-based blue chip board. Our governance and nominating committee brings forward slides of directors to the shareholder for appointment. The shareholder is always appointed that slate of directors. And that allows us to have a very business-minded board. We have members from Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, two separate states in the United States with skills ranging from what you'd expect. Right? Accountants, legal, rate-regulated utilities, the water business, the electrical business, covering the gamut that really lets us run the corporation like an independent corporation. We inform the shareholder what we're doing with their investment and keep them up to date on what we're doing but we're allowed to run the company like a company. The complexity of operating in multi-jurisdictions across multiple lines of business with multiple regulators certainly requires some long-term focus and strategic planning in terms of where is it you want to grow. Where are you best to place your investment, giving the different environments that you're operating, and then how those things work together. There's challenges with diversity but there's also a lot of value because when you're seeing higher levels of economic activity and one jurisdiction, you'll often offset pressures in others that allow us to maintain that great steady, stable increase in earnings that we've had over the history of the organization. Our dividend to our shareholder has never gone down. It has remained flat over certain periods of time but has grown quite significantly since the exception of the organization like well over three times where it was 30 years ago. The board, I want to talk about what the business is doing but I do find that the board structure is interesting in that, as you said, it's an independent board so they're making decisions on what's the best interest of the corporation. But unlike most boards like this, they don't hold shares. I'm just maybe being conversational. You'd have with your board members and your board chair. That's got a little bit of a challenge as well for board members in terms of ensuring that they're acting in the best interest of the company and the best interest of the shareholder. But they're completely independent of the shareholder. It just seems like it might be a bit of a challenge to navigate that. It works quite nicely and again a lot of that comes down to full sides understanding respecting that governance model. We know that the our shareholder, the city values, steady, stable growth in their dividend. And don't want to take a really risky position in anything that we step into. And so the board really governs in that mandate or we delivering on what is a long term growing business but that our past growth can be diverse because we're not just solely here to invest in the utility city and the city of Edmonton. And so they've always found their way pretty well that way. And the model is also somewhat attractive and you could have similar conversation with our directors. So I think we could reiterate this but there is there is something unique to being able to govern in an environment where you're not necessarily as worried about living quarter to quarter. So we can make decisions on infrastructure projects or places we're stepping into that you know we may need a few cycles to really get to the you know and state of the value proposition that you put forward. Correct. You can afford to be a little more patient. And that will will allow you to think of the long game which is helpful and a lot of a lot of our directors are also attracted the organization because we work in this unique space with water electricity. You know we're a municipality owned independently governed. There's a neat story there about you know economic value coming back to our shareholder that is is is a little bit unique compared to other opportunities for a lot of directors in those markets. We've had directors for example who've had career experiences very senior executives of large electric utilities and then subsequently with a mayor of a large municipalities and when they see this organization it's sort of like a very interesting opportunity to govern something that's kind of unique. All right so let's talk about let's talk about the business itself growing the business presumably the in addition to generating. returns back to the shareholder. I mean, you've described now it's, you know, for from just states. The business itself has actually grown a lot, right? So your assets are grown exponentially from where you started it. So what's the current state? Like where's growth coming from today in the next couple of years? So if you look at the organizational overall, the biggest driver of growth organization continues to be our granite growth. So investment and reinvestment in our rate-regulated utilities, both here in the U.S. just being able to serve, you know, incremental customer growth, the need for lifecycle replacement, and, you know, investment like that in utilities you already own is no premium investment. As long as you're doing the right things and you're doing it in line with the expectations of your regulator, we're earning our allowed ROE out of the gate. And so that to us is a great, you know, a great place to put sort of that first level of investment when we're looking at our long-term plan. Now, it's not enough to meet our growth objectives, generally speaking. And so if that serves sort of 75% of our growth, staying in average year is just reinvestment and investment in those utilities. The other 25 has to come from somewhere else. Right. And that's really a combination of being acquisitive in the utility space. So are there, you know, rate-regulated, like, trustee opportunities in Ontario that we can take a look at, rate-regulated water in the jurisdictions that we serve in the U.S. constantly looking for, you know, either bigger acquisitions or smaller assets to tuck into our portfolio. That can be challenging because, although our unique governance model and our single shareholder provides a lot of advantages for us and things we want to do, we also own access equity markets. Okay. And so what that means is everything we finance, we finance out of retained earnings and debt. Gotcha. And so when you look at the acquisition market, what you'll see is at certain multiples, things aren't, you know, you're not accretive to earnings for 10 or 12 years. Well, when you're a capital constrained, that can put a lot of pressure and credit metrics and other things you're looking at. And so we've got to be patient in that space. We'll make acquisitions, we've got to be the right acquisition. Sometimes our acquisitions of utilities where maybe they're, you know, they're a little bit distressed. So a financial is not going to take them out because they may not have the act to turn it around, but that's something we can step into knowing we've got a great big operating backbone that can help sort things out and put it back on track. So that's what's also got us in this idea of contracting misstructures. So development of assets to serve, you know, either municipal or commercial counterparties who might need a large piece of utility like infrastructure, water conveyance line, transmission assets to serve in the development that they're working on. We'll step in, you know, take all the project development risk on the construction site and then build it and then finance operate and maintain it over say a 30 year window. Under a contract that kind of creates a utility like cash flow for your asset owner. Yeah. But allows you to step in with a lot of acquisition premium when you're like us and your confidence that you can deliver on that and capture those returns with counter parties like that. And you're confident that you can deliver on it because this is what you do. It's what we do. We can do it for decades. Absolutely. And we've done it all over North America on both sides of our business. So that helps us drive the other 25% of the growth on an average year through being acquisitive and through these development projects that we do. So let's talk acquisitive after we eat. So for the listener, I'm going to hit pause. But when we have our lunch and then when we jump back in, let's talk about what that acquisition environment looks like because you mentioned a couple of jurisdictions. It's just to kind of get you take on what those look like as go forward. Sounds good. But let's pause for lunch. Interesting. Well, it certainly would be better than diesel. Well, yeah. Precisely. We're doing that. Okay. So we're back from lunch. Well fed and ready to go. I didn't go out of an interest in chat about the far north and Arctic. And how do you how do you power what the growth is going to be up there? But well, let's come back to, you know, we were chatting a little bit about opportunities and opportunities to grow the business and opportunities for acquisitions. And this is something that I've talked about on the podcast with some other folks as well. You know, most recently, Scott, the valve floor from from Amera. And, you know, kind of, you know, I've noted that both Amera and Ford is because of, you know, where there are terms are and where the opportunities are tended to be growing increasingly outside of Canada because of the lack of opportunities. Now, you'd mentioned a little bit earlier that, you know, when you're looking at opportunities, one of the places that you look at is Ontario, because you do have some assets in Ontario now. What does that world look like right now? It's sort of the same that I've heard from other folks that the real opportunities don't really seem to be in Canada. At least the way things are currently structured and what the returns are with the opportunity. Maybe it's a question of the opportunities too, right? There's not like a lot of for sale signs. I think you characterize it pretty well, Francis, that there's not a lot of real opportunities on our radar in Canada or, you know, specifically, in Ontario, around LDCs. You're just not seeing an environment that's sort of being conducive to consolidation, at least with a lot of the incumbents that are left. We're at the contrast that that's how we grew a lot of our water business in the US, was through tucking in a lot of small acquisitions where it was easy to transact, quick, and you had, you know, sellers that were willing to sell. Some of what we're seeing in Ontario right now are equity constrained LDCs that might not be looking to, I've asked completely, they want a partner. Well, if you're in operating utility looking to bring, you know, you're operating acumen in your approach to running utility, a minority ownership doesn't get you much other than, you know, your financing a partnership. Yeah. And that's the role of a financial, not the role of a strategic like APCOR. Right. And so, something's going to need to give a bit, whether it's on transfer taxes, incentives for consolidation, other requirements that can probably free that up a little bit more before you see it. We'd love to see more investment. I guess here at home, then abroad, but a lot more of the incremental opportunity right now, it you know, tends to be on the other side of the board. Yeah. Okay. So let's let's talk about running the business here here in Canada, here in Alberta, and for APCOR utilizes itself. Big, big challenges that you're facing on a day-to-day basis. Well, we broke for lunch. We chatted a little bit about supply chain, but I would imagine, you know, if you had kind of a top three issues that are kind of keeping you up at night, supply chain would probably be one of them. What would the big one's food? Supply chain might be living in the top five world to be honest with your friends. It's like, we kind of understand the risk. We know what we're stepping in into. You know, we know what it is. We know what it is and how to manage run. Does it make it more challenging? Yes, but we can manage it. It's crap, but you know, it's crap. Correct. And as long as you're planning ahead, you can work around it. Where you get into trouble is, you know, having certainty sooner allows you to better work around those supply chain issues, especially with kind of something big transformation. If you know it's coming and you know you're going to get timely approval of what you need to do, it's a lot easier to convince your board that you need to get earlier into cues to make sure that you've got the material when you need the material to get something in the ground in time. I think if you looked at the top three issues, again, I'll put my electricity hat on more than some of our other spaces we operate in. I mean, I think one that's, you know, both challenging opportunity, but just is, I do think that the theme of resiliency of the grid just overall is really important in top of Ryan right now. That captures a lot, right? That captures both the fact that after years of talking about it, and this is similar, I'm sure for many of you other members, but you know, the EVs are showing up. The crease electrification overall is showing up. Municipal pushes for densification of residential development is showing up, and all these things on the load side are adding to increased denser load, and what we're previously sort of mature service areas. And now, how do you, potentially make significant upgrades to capacity in already built out areas in terms of being able to drive that investment and have the space to do it, and then on the other side, and probably number two, then is how do you not just as an organization think about in terms of, well, add more transformers, build more wires, but take advantage of the other side of this, which is we are seeing more, you know, distributed generation, DERs, batteries, the ability to interrupt load, can you shape EV charging in such a way that you can respond to the challenge, but also use the new tools that are available to do it in the most cost-focused way, [BLANK_AUDIO] is probably that third piece of this is then the affordability discussion. >> Right. >> And, you know, the things I talked about are sort of, you know, putting your wires side of the business hat on, things that are creating cost pressure. In addition to just the base need to maintain, you know, a system that's slowly getting older and needs investment. >> You know. >> But then on top of that on the commodity side, things creating cost pressure over there. Decarbonization of electricity and wherever, you know, clean electricity ultimately ends up. >> Yeah. >> And the impact on commodity costs in a province like Alberta that doesn't have certain luxuries that others do. All the way to, you know, everyone's talking about data centers. We're seeing it in certain markets where that is driving up, you know, forwards on energy. And so how are we going to manage all three of these challenges while dealing with affordability for customers? Because that's what we're here for, right? Save, reliable, affordability service that supports, you know, the development and the economic development of the communities that we serve. >> Right. >> And so I think making those issues really saying is what sort of top of mind is we look for? >> Yeah, yeah. So what is that starting to look like for you? How are you kind of getting your mind around those first two challenges and attempting to do it in the third challenge in a affordable way? >> Yeah. I think a couple of things that we've really focused on looking back and looking forward to the same time. One is we step pretty early into the technology that enable us to do a lot of these things better a number of years ago. So first real distribution utility in the province to go to AMI. >> Okay. >> And then sitting on top of that, we actually have an electrically connected GIS and an OMS, DMS that sits on top of it. What that means is not only do we have endpoint data from all the meters, we understand exactly how the system is electrically connected. >> Gotcha. >> Which gives us a really strong backbone, both understand what's happening out there. Good example is when we see an outage, based on the meters that report loss of power, we can almost pinpoint the most likely source of that outage before a truck's roll. >> Right. >> That also gives us great visibility of what the resources out on the system are doing. And so we've got a good backbone we think we can build on. Looking, and that also allows us to understand what's happening out in the system in terms of load, densifying or moving around, because this is also not happening in pockets, right? You'll see that electrification will show up sooner in certain areas than others. So knowing the right place is in getting ahead of it before you're straining the system in summer peak, getting the right place at the right times will be important in having the data to do it is something that we're fortunate to have. Now we just have to get better and faster at processing that data. This is where things like AI come from. >> It's going to say, yeah, how does AI fit into this? >> It fits in perfectly, right? How can we offload more of the arduous process of sorting through and figuring out what that data's telling us? So we can spend more on actually doing what we need to do with those results. And figuring out what the right use cases are and what the best way to implement this. That's what's next is really driving that forward. When you look at the system side. When you look at the tools on the system, we've got, we've been stepping into pilots and demonstrations of what things look like on our system. So we've got the first virtual power plant in Canada. Just about a 10 minute drive from where you and I are sitting right now in operation that we are actually controlling. So solar panels on roofs of houses, all the houses are set with a battery supporting that entire community. And there are times when we've got supply and train there. We can dispatch all those batteries as a way to basically help locally shave the peak for lack of the better term. >> How big is that? Is that virtual power? >> It's about 100 homes. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Right now with a bigger number on future build-ups. So it's pretty exciting. And then we've got our own battery assets out in the system. We've got a couple of solar installations. Just working to understand how all these pieces are going to fit together. With the idea that 15, 15, 20, 25 years from now, running the system is going to be a lot more than the conventional way of building wires and pulling switches. It's going to be about being a distribution system on. And controlling and operating all kinds of different assets on the grid. So that maybe you're deferring big capital because you've got the ability to peak shave with battery assets in the area. Or you can, you've got low that you can throttle at times when you need to. And how controlling all those together are going to let you run out. A better, more responsive system. >> So this VPP project you've got is, so I was going to ask you how far away are we from that future. It sounds like you're actually piloting. >> You're piloting and operating one in partnership with, >> You're kind of doing a mini DSO and seeing how it rolls out. >> That's correct. Learning from it in big round now, what can broader bigger implementations look like. >> Okay. >> All right. John, one of the things I asked folks to come on the podcast is about their journey. Always finding interesting. I was asked the same question. When you were a kid on the playground, would you always dream of running utility company? How did you get from there to here? To say, what was the journey? >> You know, it's interesting. I'd never thought of joining utility. I was in grad school for business. >> Okay. >> I thought I was going to be a management consultant. And as companies were coming through during their recruiting, EPCOR showed up and EPCOR was different because all these other companies brought a couple of us. So we'll see. EPCOR brother CEO. And I remember thinking at the time, well, this must be a company that values talent. This guy came out here to-- >> It was Don Lowry. >> Oh, it's Don, okay. >> You remember Don, yeah. >> And they brought Don. And Don talked to us about the company where it was going. And my head, I thought, that's got to be a company that values talent because he took some hours out of his day and showed up to recruit. So I applied for, was a management intern program at the time. And I got hired as an intern at a grad school by EPCOR. No real job for say. I knew I would have four rotations to the organization in two years. I spent time in higher generation at the time for extra to that business. Regulated wires, called settlement and billing and corporate finance. Did that for a couple of years and sort of found my way around the company and ultimately landed in regulated electricity. Also, not necessarily where I thought a guy that two business degrees would appear. There's not a really an engineering bit of training in me anyway. And kind of, I like to help people I grew up in regulated electricity. So kind of had all sorts of opportunities and jobs and everything from sort of field operations through asset management, regulatory, kind of touched all parts of that business. It was sort of the vice president charge of engineering operations and construction in that business unit. Pretty comfortable to do the business well, new regulation well. And about 10 years in, or CEO at the time showed up in my office and said, well, I'd like you to go and become the senior leader of our water business across Canada. And if you're listening to everything I just said, the only place I hadn't worked was in the water business. So I thought, well, I guess if he thinks I can do it, I should give it a try and stepped in and led that business for four years. It was a good experience because all your technical understanding and the basics of how the business sort of go away. But the idea of rate regulated utility and all the things that it takes to run a good one are somewhat transferable. And so was able to bring that over there and learn the water business really well, then spent four years running our corporate services group. So HR, HSE, all the things you can imagine. Got to do that to the pandemic, which was a fun and interesting opportunity. I was just-- Yeah. Fire retardant, you know, face masks for line crews that had to be on the current, how we dealt with all that. But great experience, sort of corporately. And then spend about a year and a half in our commercial development-- later in commercial with the Maryland team. So developing a lot of those infrastructure projects I talked about, looking at the acquisition files. And then about three years ago, my former boss announced he was retiring. And so I've had the opportunity to lead this great company for the last three years as cheap executives. So it's been a great journey. And I've enjoyed every minute of it. And even though I never thought this is where I'd be sitting, having a conversation like this, I wouldn't change it for the world. All right. So a cast of mine to the future. You talked a little bit about on the electricity side, the distribution system operator model. When we get up to-- I don't know, in 2030, 2040-- how different does F. Corzell at Trusody Business work? Well, I think-- I guess I'm bringing a couple of themes in a player. One is the discussion we just had. We will be running it in a very different way and thinking about how we approach problems differently. And I think that's a good thing. I think that in an ideal world, we will have built some more scale in rate-regulated electricity outside of Edmonton. with that. And it's been a hard market to crack as we spoke about. But we're still working on that. And then the third is, I talked to what the contracted infrastructure space. We've got assets, we have electrical assets in operation under that model already, exploring more opportunities to grow that part of the business. Those are sort of the three planks to grow for us that you'll see us leaning on as we go forward. Now you'd mentioned that Don Maury came and met with your graduate student class when he was doing recruiting. Leadership in this space. Which kind of your view in terms of the role that leaders play in terms of not simply running teams. And running organizations, but kind of articulating and building the future. Is it happen organically? Or does it actually take people who have a vision for what the future needs to be? I think it's absolutely the latter. Because maybe you think about it Francis. The work we do, the infrastructure we construct, the equipment we use. Most of it is not proprietary. You're buying off the shelf technology or slightly modifying it to suit your needs. But very few of us have proprietary technology or sort of true differentiators on that side of the house. And even less now than a generation ago. Right. And you know, I always tell our water folks, so water treatment plants the same here as it is in some other jurisdiction. Yeah. It's how we operate it, our approach to operating it, our commercial acumen, our entrepreneurial instincts, or what allowed us to go to a company. Without that, that's your sustainable differential advantage. Not you have a proprietary access to the best switch transformer technology in the space. And so I think you have to invest a lot of time in it. And we do. We spend a lot of time on leadership development. We spend a lot of time on employee development, tracking our pipeline to make sure that that next generation of leaders can sort of continue to push our culture identity and our strategy forward as the company is critical. Because without that, you'll kind of lose who you are as an organization and how you kind of got where you got. And so, you know, when you're, I like the way you describe it as, you know, you're trying to make sure that it's, you know, my words, not yours, but it sounds like you're describing it as making sure it's part of the DNA of the organization and culture. When you think just in terms of, I know we're kind of going down this leadership track a little bit, but, you know, when you think of leadership, is there, you know, is there like an archetypal leader that you think of, that you point to or that, you know, you'd say that that's somebody, you know, what lessons can be learned from inspiration? You know, I'm kind of a, I was talking about leadership in the background. We thought the women's gold, gold, the game in the background. And I'm going to tell me that. I mean, look at over your shoulder now. You know, I'm kind of a, my philosophy has always been be a compiler of the best pieces you find in everybody. And use that to figure out who you are. So, I struggled to point at one single individual, but I do think that if you look at the culture of, you know, I guess my style, and I would argue the style of this organization, it's really focused on a few things. One is, we anchor a lot of things to our app core purpose. And that's communities count on us, we count on each other. Okay. The communities count on us is pretty obvious when we're in the utility business. Yeah. Communities need us to live their day-to-day lives each and every day, and that's something we take care of seriously. But that community, we count on each other part, it's really critical to who we are. We're all here to serve one another to make sure that we can deliver on that first part of the purpose statement. So, whether I'm the CEO or you're the purchasing manager or you're alignment out in the field, we all have a role to play in service of one another to get that job done for the customer. Okay. And we're here to work together to accomplish that. And I'm not trying to make you look bad, I'm not trying to look better than you. That's really our philosophy is one company doing great work together in support of delivery of that mandate. And that takes some things, right? That takes integrity. You have to build trust, you've got to be the kind of leader that does the right thing. We're pretty firm and belief on transparency and inclusivity. We want environment where everybody's got a voice. A lot of that is kind of what we ground that philosophy in. And that's pretty critical to who we are as a organization, especially when you think multi-geography, multi-lines of business. You get siloed really easily if you don't think that way. And so, we put a lot of focus on that. We also put a lot of focus on moving leaders amongst those businesses in order to make sure we're cross pollinating and seeding that culture across the company. Okay. All right. Always wrap up with one final question. Okay. And I look for a book recommendation. Okay. I've always find this really interesting. We put it all together in our flux capacity book club, our list. But it also feeds, honestly, my reading habits as well. But it also, I find, gives me a bit of an insight into the people that come on the podcast. So, if I was to ask you, John, for book recommendation, what would you recommend to me? It depends on the context, for instance. But if I think it, maybe I'll give you a three, just for fun. Oh, okay. All right. Three. Okay. Give me three. My pen is ready. The Bruce is called How Big Things Get Done. Yes, we've had that recommended before. Okay. Well, there you go. How big things get done. Yeah. 90% of the way to that. I mean, proper delivery of big, proper capital projects is toppled by him for a lot of us. And I think it's a really practical and insightful read on what great looks like. Right. Right. If I put on my CEO hat, probably the best book I ever read there was a book called CEO Excellence. CEO Excellence? Yeah. Came out of a McKinsey, basically. Okay. And there's a really good job of capturing the role. I'll call it the different types of CEOs that are out there. Okay. You're not all going to be the same, but there are sort of streams that you can live in. And maybe how that fits against the needs of what the organization needs. Yeah. And that was really helpful for me. And then you're just talking plain old leadership. And this is an old read. But I find I always go back to lessons. And it was an old book called It's Your Ship. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. It's your ship. I think somebody recommended that previously. That was written by a former Michael Ambershov. He was a captain of the worship and the Navy. Right. And by the time he was done, it was the best ship in the Navy. And it's just a really simple book with these snippets on engaging leadership. Yeah. But simple lessons. I've given that book to 100 new or mid-level leaders or just kind of trying to find their way from just a pure play leadership perspective. But it just gives you these little things to walk away with that you're a member of recognition. Moral building. But important things. Stay any leader. Wow. Okay. So I thought I'd walk away with one book recommendation. I got three. Big things get done. CEO excellence. And it's your ship. To start. It's a start. I have two out of three of these. I read how big things get done. It's your ship is on my stack of two reads. So basically on your recommendation, I think I'll move it to the top of the stack. Sounds like a good move. Very cool. All right. John, thank you very much. I really appreciate you coming on the podcast. And that was a really good lunch, too. Everything works out for a reason. Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks, Francis. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] your ship and the new addition to the book Club List, CEO Excellence by McKinsey and company senior partners, Carolyn Duer, Scott Keeler, and Vikram Melhotra. And let's continue the electricity conversation on our Facebook page on Instagram and at electrizety.ca. [BLANK_AUDIO]