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BC Hydro President and CEO Dave Cobb.
December 30, 2010
Is Dave Cobb's cat watching TV again?
Posted by Michelle Martin
What has the power to keep the President and CEO of a major corporation up at night? Well, if you're Dave Cobb, your answer may surprise some.
"I can't go to bed knowing there's a charger plugged into the wall that's not charging anything," says Cobb. "I wouldn't go to bed with the tap running either, and I don't see any difference between the two. Being wasteful with our resources doesn't sit right with me."
Last June, a month after Cobb joined BC Hydro from the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), he was drafted as a celebrity member of Team Power Smart aside the likes of Steve Nash and Ryan Kesler.
As one of the more than 270,000 British Columbians who've taken on the conservation challenge, he keeps finding more ways to conserve and discovering more reasons to do so.
It began with a failing grade
Coming of age in the economic boom era, the notorious 1980s, Cobb admits that conservation hasn't always been a big part of his conscience – if part of it at all. But all that changed at VANOC.
When VANOC CEO John Furlong was recruited to Team Power Smart, Furlong requested that every member of the Executive Team get an energy audit on their homes. That's when Cobb's eyes really opened to his own, shall we say, less-than-perfect energy efficiency.
"My wife, 12-year-old daughter and I lived in a big old pre-war era house with paper-thin windows, no insulation in the walls, incandescent light bulbs, and an inefficient furnace," he said, with a notable hint of shame in his voice. "We scored 42 out of 100 for energy efficiency."
They knew they needed to make some changes, but wanted to preserve the classic character of the home. To their surprise, major conservation results were produced by only a few relatively minor upgrades: installing an energy efficient furnace, converting to CFL light bulbs and adding weather stripping to doors.
But still, their house would never be efficient as long as it was larger than what their three-person family needed. With this in mind, last May they moved into a new smaller house built with energy efficiency in mind, a house that scored 79 on its first energy audit.
"That 37-point change reflects just how much our society has evolved in terms of building efficiently," says Cobb. "That's great news."
Gadgets and energy gobblers
A self-proclaimed gadget freak and televised sports junkie, Cobb is well aware that the evolution and innovations of society over time don't always actually lead us towards using less electricity.
His new home is a good example. While more efficient and smaller, it also has air conditioning, a wine fridge in addition to a full-sized fridge, and the usual assortment of electronic household gadgets and devices.
"No matter how efficient we are, we always seem to find new ways of using electricity. We must be careful we're not offsetting all the good work we're doing by using more stuff," says Cobb. "With all our new devices, sometimes we don't even know what we're consuming. A big 'uh-oh' moment for me recently was learning that my PVRs were sucking up power 24 hours a day... not good!"
Cobb is looking forward to having a smart meter installed in his home. Not only will this allow him to add to his gadget collection – with, for example, an in-home feedback device – but it will also encourage a more fulsome understanding of his home's energy use and, as a result, opportunities to conserve.
Must be the cat
Building smarter and knowing more is only part of the conservation battle. Ultimately, it's the small actions of individuals adding up over time that will truly drive the conservation momentum.
At the Cobb household, Dave admits to being the strongest conservation advocate in his family. This means that he's often challenged to balance his conservation enthusiasm with avoiding becoming the family efficiency nag.
"Every time I come home, I start turning off lights that have been left on," he says. "When I see a television left on, I ask my wife and daughter which one of the cats was watching it, as they are often the only ones in the room. I do this partly in fun, but I also realize that if my own family has to be regularly reminded not to waste electricity, then, like us, there is likely still a lot of room for improvement with other British Columbian households."
Altruistic intentions
Cobb has big plans. Not only does he want to change the habits of his family, but also shape the evolution of energy demand, and hence supply, in the province. And it's all tied together.
"I think that through upgrades and efficiency changes, most households can at least partially make up their portion of the gap between the electricity supply the province will need in the future and what currently is available," he says. "If we achieve our conservation objectives, it will make a real difference to what we need to build and buy, which ultimately impacts the electricity rates that all customers must pay."
Cobb's dedication to low rates builds into his personal ambition to manifest positive social change from his positions of power – something that has played out across different organizations he's been part of.
"When I was part of the management team at the Canucks, we teamed up with Children's Hospital and other charities to bring our players to meet the kids – that changed lives," he remembers. "And at VANOC, we knew that the spotlight aimed at the Olympic Games would give us a great opportunity to be a catalyst for positive change and to make a real difference for people.
"We ended up taking 60 youth off the streets and putting them through a carpentry program at our fabrications shop on Clark and 3rd Avenue so that they could support themselves and live productive, satisfying lives."
At BC Hydro, he again feels that great opportunities abound to do the right thing for people in this province – and conservation is part of that.
"At BC Hydro, our job is beyond service delivery. We're a big company that can have a big impact. Our work to help low-income people conserve with free energy saving kits and our efforts to keep our rates low are so important," he says.
It's an ambitious plan, and so Cobb will need lots of sound sleeps. So let's all wish him fewer curious cats, more unplugged chargers, and future passing grades.
Michelle Martin is a writer-editor with BC Hydro's employee communications department.
