Our May 2018 meeting was held at “The Club” and featured two great speakers. Retired Alabama Power Vice President Julia Segars opened the meeting with informal update on “Life After Southern”, speaking about her second career as an award-winning humor columnist and author of the book Aunt Sister. She began the columns under the pen name “Aunt Sister” so as not to interfere with her corporate career. Julia’s husband Frank Segars, an SCS retiree, appears frequently in her columns and in the book as Aunt Sister’s husband “Fred”, along with other family members and an odd assortment of Southern folks, “bless their hearts”. Julia grew up in Bluff Park, which is known as “The Mountain” in her book. Keep up with her on her Aunt Sister Facebook page, or her website https://auntsister.com/
The excellent Executive Update was given by E&CS Vice President Paula Marino. She explained that consumer demand is changing, and The Southern Company is changing as well. Paula noted that the relationship between economic growth and electricity sales seems to be changing. Despite economic growth, commercial electricity sales remain weak. Energy efficiency and e-commerce may be causing a fundamental shift in the commercial class.
To combat this, Southern is working to find new revenue sources. We are focusing on technology development for the production, delivery and end-use of energy with projects such as APC’s Smart Neighborhood to demonstrate distributed energy resource (DER) use case optimizing cost, reliability, and environmental impact with a community-scale microgrid. The Reynolds Landing neighborhood demonstrates building-to-grid integration with real time utility to customer interaction.
Indoor agriculture is another promising area. Indoor agriculture saves water, reduces pesticides, makes use of vacant buildings, and provides access to fresh foods.
Collaboration with governments, utilities, universities, and technology developers such as EPRI and DOE is key, for projects such as National Carbon Collection Center and the Next-Gen Nuclear. Electric vehicle use is increasing.
Defensive measures to cut costs include closing business offices, restructuring, optimizing workforce, retiring facilities, increasing efficiencies, outsourcing labor, standardizing work products. Offensive measures include increasing bill pay options, expanding renewable portfolios, deploying distributed generation, adding service offerings, exploring new revenue streams.
Here are some additional pictures from the meeting:
Janice Stephens Adams, 65 of Birmingham, went peacefully to be with our Lord on Easter Sunday, April 1, 2018. She is survived by her adoring husband of 43 years, Robert Harrison Adams Jr.; four children, Melissa Saddler (Latham), Harrison (Michelle), Nicholas and Caroline; as well as 3 grandchildren, Ramona, Latham “Bubba” and Noura; brothers and sisters, Lorraine Dabney (Al), Hixie Stephens (Karen), Barbara Williams (Bobby), Robert Stephens Jr. (Suzi) and sister in-law, Jenny Stephens. Janice also leaves behind a large extended family of brothers and sisters-in-law, cousins, nieces, nephews and friends. She was preceded in death by her parents, Robert and Gloria (Pharo) Stephens and her brother, Deacon Joe Stephens. Janice attended John Carroll Catholic High School and Jacksonville State University. To all who knew her, Janice was a smiling face, a kind word and a gentle hug. She was an incredible example of faith and trust in God. Her greatest joy in life was being a mother, and she filled that role perfectly and gracefully not only for her own children but as a mother figure to so many others as well. In addition to her devotion to her family, Janice dedicated her life to service through her work with Camp Fire Alabama, Civiettes Club, and as an active member at St. Elias Maronite Catholic Church through Ladies’ Altar Society, as well as many others. In celebration of Janice’s life, services was held at St. Elias Maronite Catholic Church on Tuesday, April 3. A Rosary, visitation and funeral Mass was held followed by the burial at Elmwood Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations were requested to St. Elias Maronite Catholic Church, St. Rose Academy and Camp Fire Alabama. The family wishes to especially thank Ashli Burrell and her team at Warm Embrace who enveloped Janice with the utmost loving care, compassion and dedication through her illness. They would also like to thank the nursing staff at Amedisys for their care and support at the end of Janice’s life.
Congressman Gary Palmer spoke at our March 12 meeting to a packed room. He represents Alabama’s 6th Congressional District that covers portions of several counties where many of our retirees live. He gave his remarks, then addressed several questions from the audience, and stayed afterwards to talk individually with attendees from all sides of our bipartisan group.