Trenton, TN, L & W General Manager Scott Dahlstrom, right, shares the Tennessee Valley Distribution Marketplace Forum stage with APPA President/CEO Sue Kelly, left, and NRECA President/CEO Jim Matheson (TVA photo by Damien K. Power)
For a day and a half, the second annual Tennessee Valley Distribution Marketplace Forum featured variations on familiar themes:
“We’re competing for energy in a marketplace where we’ve typically had a monopoly,” said TVPPA Chairman Greg Williams, the event’s co-emcee. “It’s not future tense. It’s here. Now.”
TVA Vice President Laura Campbell, who emceed alongside Williams, noted that the point of last year’s inaugural Forum was to “plant a seed … this is a deeper dive, as we look for ways to work together to find solutions for the Valley as the industry continues to change.”
And there was this, from author, futurist and Forum keynoter Jack Uldrich: “The only way to predict the future is to create it yourself. The opportunity before you is a big one, and those of you with the courage to embrace it will be successful.”
But as the Forum’s curtain fell, TVPPA-member manager Scott Dahlstrom wove deftly a thread that connected all the talk of the changing industry, Millennial customers and new technologies.
“Customers and employees expect us to manage change,” said Dahlstrom, the general manager at Trenton, TN, L & W. “The key to managing change is through engagement, so take this conversation home and engage the people affected by your decisions.
“Be the leaders you’re supposed to be,” Dahlstrom said.
Read much more about the 2016 Tennessee Valley Distribution Marketplace Forum in the November/December issue of TVPPA News magazine.