During an interview with Bill Landels Friday, I kept waiting for him to say "Aye, laddy, and it's a bonny fine state ye have herrrrre in Utah."
Actually, Landels ("Not William, not Mr. Landels, just Bill"), the new top gun locally for ScottishPower a k a PacifiCorp aka Utah Power, did say he and his wife, Jessie, are delighted to be taking up residence in Salt Lake City, and he said it with as fine a Scots burr as can be found this side of Edinburgh.But though he sounded remarkably like Robert the Bruce in "Braveheart," he didn't say "aye," and he didn't call me "Laddy," which is just as well since I'm a wee bit older than he.
Officially, Landels, 56, has been named executive vice president and a director of PacifiCorp. He said the company has decided to downplay the ScottishPower name here, even though the British utility officially took over PacifiCorp and its subsidiaries Utah Power and Pacific Power on Tuesday.
The Landelses have been in Salt Lake City since October and have taken up residence on East Capitol Boulevard. He has moved into his offices on the 23rd floor of One Utah Center on the southeast corner of 200 S. Main. He allows that the views from both his house and his office are spectacular.
Landels has been working for ScottishPower in England for the past four years after the company acquired Manweb, an electric utility in England and Northern Wales where he was managing director, in 1995.
He spent Thursday night at the Homestead in Midway and got his first taste of a major Utah snowstorm on his way downtown Friday morning.
He liked it.
"In England there's no definition to the seasons, just dull, depressing rain. This is quite a shock to me and I love it. It feels healthy just to breathe the air."
Landels says he already feels at home here, despite having to leave his two grown children in Britain. "I don't feel like an alien in America. We eat the same foods pretty much."
Oh really? What about haggis, the traditional Scottish dish of sheep innards that most American wouldn't eat even on a double-dog dare?
Landels agrees haggis may be an exception, adding that he hasn't yet found a decent one in Salt Lake City.
"We'll be popping home (to Scotland) for Christmas, and we'll bring some back for dinner," he promised. I told him I was pretty sure I'd be busy that night but thanks just the same.
In any case, Landels has already met a lot of Utahns. As SP's point man in Utah, he's been talking with a wide variety of people, including politicians, business executives, laborers, developers, the homeless at Travelers Aid and patients at Shriner's Hospital and Primary Children's Medical Center. Oh, and he's already paid a call on Jon M. Huntsman, a man he found to be "quite awesome, in every meaning of the word."
Although he is, in effect, now the chief executive officer of Utah Power, Landels said he sees his role as something else, more a goodwill ambassador than a destroying angel here to shake things up.
For the next six months he'll be working on a transition plan in which every aspect of the utility will be examined. Part of that will be looking at "branding," meaning what they will call the new company. As noted above, Landels expects that the old familiar name, Utah Power, will be kept in place here.
Not surprisingly, Utah Power employees are nervous about what the merger means to them. Landels said he understands this, and while he can't promise there won't be changes, even layoffs, neither does he expect a large-scale reduction in jobs.
"There's always uncertainty in a merger, but the transition can't be hurried. We'll look at operating efficiencies and where there are (job) overlaps. They have great people here, and we'll be looking for leaders. There will be better jobs for a lot of them and some rundowns in other areas."
Landels says his goal is to elevate ScottishPower into the top 10 utilities in the nation in terms of customer and investor performance and hopefully even the top half of the top 10. That's what happened, he said, when SP acquired Manweb.
"We will have clear targets and make people accountable, by that I mean guys like me knowing where we are. It's not rocket science, it's about leadership."