Outage Map
Future Engineers Learn To Navigate Energy Regulation Complexities
Story and photo by Brent ten Pas
Central Electric Cooperative member and retiree Rick Phelps teaches a course at Oregon State University-Cascades every spring. He finds it rewarding when his students take a keen interest in the subject matter and keep in touch to share their career successes in the energy field.
In 2017, Rick visited the campus and met Dr. Rebecca Webb, a senior instructor in the engineering program. After learning about Rick’s professional and educational background, she asked if he wanted to teach a class.
“I told her, ‘I’m not the 1 to teach your electricity course, your technical courses,’” Rick says. “We started talking about the regulatory environment and what’s happening in the energy space. She asked if I could teach that course.”
"I think going through that process made us realize you have to have smart people who are capable of putting together these really formed opinions. We should expect that of anything that we do as engineers." - Derek Hobden
There was a catch: No textbook or guide existed, leaving Rick to create a course. Wanting to make students aware of the wide range of issues involving energy, he relied on case studies and outside speakers to bring real examples into the classroom. He believed the multifaceted exposure and student involvement would help equip future engineers in the field.
With that, a new energy regulation course was born, transforming a required course for the university’s energy systems engineering degree. The curriculum aims to help students identify and become familiar with energy laws and regulations and their impact on various issues, such as rate setting, transmission siting, climate change, energy efficiency, and power purchase agreements.
In designing the course’s content, the Indiana native drew from decades of experience in the private sector and the utility industry. A trained economist who graduated from the University of Texas with special honors and followed it with an MBA from Harvard University, Rick initially worked for Dole Foods before being recruited to a leading worldwide consulting firm, McKinsey and Co., in Los Angeles.
Living in Pasadena, California, Rick sought ways to get involved in the community. He volunteered to serve on a city planning committee. When Pasadena’s then-mayor, Bill Bogaard, learned Rick had done consulting work for an investor-owned utility, he sent Rick a letter out of the blue, appointing him to the Pasadena Utilities Advisory Commission for Pasadena Water and Power, a not-for-profit community-owned utility founded in 1908.
“I went onto the board of the utility and ended up serving a total of 7 years, and 3 as chair,” Rick says. “I was just fascinated by the industry of public power. Looking at it more from a public community aspect and serving on the commission introduced me to the public power world.”
From there, Rick worked for Anaheim Public Utilities, conducting a management audit where he studied the utility inside and out and proposed successful cost-cutting measures. He followed that with a successful effort to implement $100 million in energy-efficiency projects at Southern California Edison, an investor-owned utility. The program provided low-interest loans to customers to buy energy-efficient equipment for their homes.
Rick eventually took that experience to Mammoth, a mountain town in California, where he joined the nonprofit High Sierra Energy Foundation, which promotes energy efficiency in the region. Rick served as the executive director and has sat on the organization’s board since his retirement in 2017.
Rick and his wife, Vicky, relocated to Central Oregon in 2016. He looked again to get involved in the community, ultimately leading him to OSU-Cascades as a part-time instructor.
A key component of the energy regulation class is a case study Rick created, “Fish v. Kilowatt-Hours: Fact Finding.” It centers on a decades-long debate over the Columbia River’s federal hydroelectric generation and whether it can coexist with fish.
“I had this idea that the big issue was the fish and the energy and how this would be approached in the regulatory sense,” he says. “Students are assigned to take a position and teams to conduct independent research and develop well-structured arguments arguing for more fish or more energy and then must present to a mock regulatory commission.”
Derek Hobden, a former student with a successful career in energy, saw value in the exercise.
“I think what it made us do as students is think critically about how we structure arguments so that we can have productive debate around topics that don’t really have a clear right or wrong answer—a lot of gray area,” he says. “I think going through that process made us realize you have to have smart people who are capable of putting together these really formed opinions. We should expect that of anything that we do as engineers.”
Besides sharpening students’ critical thinking, the assigned case study helps develop and hone their communication skills to make convincing and logical arguments backed by data. Rick relishes playing the regulatory commissioner, looking for opportunities to poke holes in students’ arguments and sometimes taking irrational positions, forcing the students to be prepared for anything.
Rick hopes that when students complete the class, they will be more aware of the myriad policies 1 must deal with in a regulatory environment and get a taste of the complex regulatory process.
“The most rewarding part has been when you find a couple of students—or they find you—and they’re really interested in the subject and want to talk about and pursue it more,” he says. “That is really fun.”