Andrew Boatright (right) is retiring this Friday after seven years as general manager of the Zeeland Board of Public Works. He will be succeeded by Bob Mulder (left), who has been the city-owned utility’s power supply and market operations manager.
By Greg Chandler
Zeeland Record
Andrew Boatright recalls his first day as general manager of the Zeeland Board of Public Works in January 2019.
“We had just celebrated (previous general manager) Bill Cook’s retirement at lunch. He finished his lunch, packed up, got in the car and drove off – and we had this (power) outage of historical proportions … it was a substation outage,” Boatright said.
“It was a nice day. It wasn’t weather-related.”
Fortunately, the outage was one of the few that Boatright has had to deal with over the past seven years. Reliability has been one of the hallmarks of BPW operations under his leadership.
A retirement open house to honor Boatright for his service to BPW and the Zeeland community will take place Friday afternoon from 3 to 5 p.m. at the utility’s administrative office and customer service center, 350 W. Washington Ave.
Boatright will be replaced as general manager by Bob Mulder, who has been BPW’s power supply and market operations manager for more than eight years. Boatright calls his experience leading the utility “the best part of my career.”
“It was the best of the models of governance for not only the utility, but the city … This is the model for how governance should be,” Boatright said.
Boatright’s career in public power began in 1983 as an engineer for the city of Rensselaer, Ind. He later moved up to leadership roles in Richmond, Ind., Westerville, Ohio and Independence, Mo. before arriving in Zeeland in 2019.
Boatright’s retirement comes as BPW and the city have recently concluded work on an Integrated Resource Plan that will serve as a guiding document for addressing the community’s future energy needs. The City Council gave final approval to the document Sept. 8.
“It was a long process, but it was the right process, it was a great process,” said Mulder, who guided development of the IRP. “It involved community stakeholders … We identified representatives from all customer classes – industrial, commercial, residential, governmental. We wanted a representative cross-section of the community and key stakeholders.”
The document addresses future energy generation, capacity, reliability, affordability, regulatory requirements brought on by new laws urging utilities to move toward clean energy, and replacement of aging generating assets.
Boatright points to the implementation of advanced metering for both the electric and water utilities as a major step forward for BPW during his tenure.
“It offered the foundation for us to provide tools to the utility customers, to be able to see what they’re using in near-real time, and control their costs by having that feedback mechanism,” he said.
Related to that, he said, was the conversion of BPW’s utility billing system, which was completed late last year.
“It provides a much greater simplicity for our customer service team, but also a customer service portal where customers can pay bills, they can see what they’re usage is in near-real time, and receive communication from us, (and) they can communicate with us through that tool,” Boatright said.
In addition to his leadership locally, Boatright has been a prominent advocate for public power at the state and national levels. He served as chairman of the board for the American Public Power Association (APPA) in 2016, and more recently served as board chairman for the Michigan Public Power Agency (MPPA).
“What I've always loved about public power is that it's not about shareholders, it's about ‘community’,” Boatright said. “Every decision we make comes back to the people who live here, and getting to serve the Zeeland community for the last seven years has been an incredible honor.”
Boatright intends to remain in Zeeland as he moves into retirement, and has plans for travel and increased time with family.
Zeeland Record
Andrew Boatright recalls his first day as general manager of the Zeeland Board of Public Works in January 2019.
“We had just celebrated (previous general manager) Bill Cook’s retirement at lunch. He finished his lunch, packed up, got in the car and drove off – and we had this (power) outage of historical proportions … it was a substation outage,” Boatright said.
“It was a nice day. It wasn’t weather-related.”
Fortunately, the outage was one of the few that Boatright has had to deal with over the past seven years. Reliability has been one of the hallmarks of BPW operations under his leadership.
A retirement open house to honor Boatright for his service to BPW and the Zeeland community will take place Friday afternoon from 3 to 5 p.m. at the utility’s administrative office and customer service center, 350 W. Washington Ave.
Boatright will be replaced as general manager by Bob Mulder, who has been BPW’s power supply and market operations manager for more than eight years. Boatright calls his experience leading the utility “the best part of my career.”
“It was the best of the models of governance for not only the utility, but the city … This is the model for how governance should be,” Boatright said.
Boatright’s career in public power began in 1983 as an engineer for the city of Rensselaer, Ind. He later moved up to leadership roles in Richmond, Ind., Westerville, Ohio and Independence, Mo. before arriving in Zeeland in 2019.
Boatright’s retirement comes as BPW and the city have recently concluded work on an Integrated Resource Plan that will serve as a guiding document for addressing the community’s future energy needs. The City Council gave final approval to the document Sept. 8.
“It was a long process, but it was the right process, it was a great process,” said Mulder, who guided development of the IRP. “It involved community stakeholders … We identified representatives from all customer classes – industrial, commercial, residential, governmental. We wanted a representative cross-section of the community and key stakeholders.”
The document addresses future energy generation, capacity, reliability, affordability, regulatory requirements brought on by new laws urging utilities to move toward clean energy, and replacement of aging generating assets.
Boatright points to the implementation of advanced metering for both the electric and water utilities as a major step forward for BPW during his tenure.
“It offered the foundation for us to provide tools to the utility customers, to be able to see what they’re using in near-real time, and control their costs by having that feedback mechanism,” he said.
Related to that, he said, was the conversion of BPW’s utility billing system, which was completed late last year.
“It provides a much greater simplicity for our customer service team, but also a customer service portal where customers can pay bills, they can see what they’re usage is in near-real time, and receive communication from us, (and) they can communicate with us through that tool,” Boatright said.
In addition to his leadership locally, Boatright has been a prominent advocate for public power at the state and national levels. He served as chairman of the board for the American Public Power Association (APPA) in 2016, and more recently served as board chairman for the Michigan Public Power Agency (MPPA).
“What I've always loved about public power is that it's not about shareholders, it's about ‘community’,” Boatright said. “Every decision we make comes back to the people who live here, and getting to serve the Zeeland community for the last seven years has been an incredible honor.”
Boatright intends to remain in Zeeland as he moves into retirement, and has plans for travel and increased time with family.
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