David Gadis is the CEO of DC Water. Prior to this, he was with Veolia NA and Indianapolis Water. He joins Aquasight CEO Mahesh Lunani for a wide-ranging discussion, including how his experience in the private sector informs his management style when running a utility.
A third generation water professional, Gadis looks at DC Water as an economic engine for our nation's capital. This includes cleaning up waterways to enable economic development, and providing access for tourists in town for the cherry blossoms. But it's also important to him to do the right thing - which meant turning former customers' water back on during COVID, and halting shutdowns.
This caring approach is also how David approaches company culture at DC Water. Within a few months of his arrival, he moved from a siloed approach to a more collaborative, inclusive one, where people of all backgrounds are both hired and heard. He also focused on a strategic plan, closing aligned with new key performance indicators.
Gadis also discusses infrastructure priorities including the DC Lead Free initiative, and the building of deep tunnels, which help mitigate flooding and will cut excursion into rivers and streams. Advances in technology and innovation are exciting as well.
DC Water is the only municipality that's produced an ESG Report. But Gadis doesn't look at it as Environmental Social Governance specifically. It's just a natural piece of their strategic plan.
Finally, David discusses the leadership qualities of listening, being a people person, and rewarding your employees. In fact, in terms of legacy, he's most concerned about being remembered for how he treated people.
Links:
DC Water Website:https://www.dcwater.com/
David Gadis Bio: https://www.dcwater.com/person/david-gadis
Aquasight Website: https://aquasight.io/
Mahesh: Well, good morning. Good afternoon. And good evening. I'm with David Gadis, CEO of DC water. Previously, David was an executive vice president of Veolia North America and CEO of Indianapolis Water. He's on the board of NACWA and the National Forum of Black Public Administrators. And during his time in Indianapolis was on the boards of a number of reputed institutions, including the chamber of commerce.
And this is the best part. He played college basketball at Southern Methodist University and was a team captain and inducted into Indiana basketball hall of fame. In speaking to an athlete, a private company executive, and a public administrator, I expect this to be an absolutely insightful stimulative and electrifying conversation. Welcome David.
David: Thank you very much.
Mahesh: So let me get right into it. What prompted the move from being a corporate executive to running a water company in one of the most important cities in the world?
David: Well, I'm not sure that there's anything that prompted a movement. I'm not sure the two positions are any different than each other.
I think you have to look at my whole body of work. And as you stated earlier, I am the former CEO of Indianapolis Water Company. Veolia water is considered one of the largest water companies in the world from a management operation standpoint. And so I was still in the business of operating and managing utilities and selling services and taking care of customers and clients, and all of those sorts of things. But I think if you take my whole body of work, they're all very similar to each other. As far as the move from Veolia Water to, as you stated, probably one of the most important water utilities in the country because it's in the nation's capital. That is a heck of an opportunity for anyone to pass on. And so I think that the timing was great. I'd had a great career at Veolia. They treated me very, very well. And I did my job every single day for, I think, a great organization. And so as a result, when DC water came calling, it was a great opportunity for me to make the change and be able to move DC water in a direction that the board of directors were looking for.
For me as a third generation water utility executive, you know, my grandfather was in the business for 30 years. My dad was in the business for 40 years. It was an opportunity and they both worked at Indianapolis Water Company. So it was an opportunity for me to take things I learned in Indianapolis and at Veolia and bring them to DC Water, which I think made me a great candidate for the job as well. And I think it's what the organization needed at the time when I came to DC.
Mahesh: Well, that's excellent. And I didn't know you were a third generation water professional. So have you reached the highest in your family?
David: Yeah, definitely. I mean, when you think back, my, my grandfather worked in the utility business from 1932 to 62, and we know the positions that African-Americans had at that time.
And those are just facts. Okay. And my dad was in the business from 62 to 2002, and there were still hurdles for African-Americans in this business. This has been a predominantly male dominated And so without a doubt, I'm the highest in my family that has served in the utility business. But I think that the work that they did was at times more monumental than what I did. They were actually doing the real work, and utility workers are my heroes.
Those are the individuals that are, when we go to bed at night, water's running. Main break occurs inevitably at two o'clock, midnight, three in the morning. And when we wake up, the main break is repaired and water's back. So. Those are the individuals out there doing the work. And we miss out on a lot of that. We don't see that. And so they are definitely my heroes and that's the role that my grandfather, my father played.
Mahesh: Excellent. You know, for sure. It sounds like you broke the ceiling, but you still understood the importance of those or actually do the work on the ground. But don't undermine yourself. I think leadership is critical, right, for sure.
David: Yeah, it is. There's no doubt about it that it's critical, but you need individuals that will follow as well. And that's part of being a leader is to be able to find those individuals and have those individuals on board, but lead in the right way. So I do agree with you, but I still say that the work that they did was just monumental work and the work that utility workers do today is just monumental from my perspective. And that they're truly my heroes.
Mahesh: Great story. Great story. So I want to now talk about DC Water, because that's the role you took on. Can you describe how you see DC Water, not the perspective of pipes and valves and machinery. I mean, everybody talks about that, but in terms of the relationship between infrastructure you have and the communities who serve the businesses you empower, and the economy that your infrastructure serves. It's a different way of looking at a utility. Can you describe that?
David: Well, I've always looked at utilities in the way I'm about to describe it to you. And there is an economic engine.
We are an economic engine and we're part of that economic engine. We play a big role in that economic engine. And one of the examples I would give you is that the Anacostia. River here in Washington, DC. When I first came in four or five years ago, it was rated an F Rated river. Not fishable and not swimmable.
We're changing that river due to our deep tunnel project where we are not having the excursions that we're having into the river. We have boats in the river every day, picking up the trash and the garbage that comes from upstream. Not that they're producing here in DC. And as a result of that, developers came to DC and wanted to build on the river, on an F rated river.
And that we've changed now. It's fastly approaching a C rated river because of the work that we have done here at DC Water from a sewer and storm water management standpoint. So I see water utilities as an economic engine. Without proper water infrastructure in place and sewer infrastructure in place and quality of water in place businesses can't grow. And so here in DC, you know, we have the Wharf, we have the Navy Yards. And then also when you go over to the Potomac River, same sort of thing. If those rivers were just in really bad shape and you saw nothing but trash and garbage in them and excursions happening and they smelled badly, no one would build hotels and other sorts of businesses along these rivers. And so I see us at DC Water as an economic engine, but we have all of these stakeholders and all of these customers that we take care of as well. So it's hard to get away from the pipes and those sorts of things, you know, from this. But we definitely have all of these things included in there.
Mahesh: I mean, that's actually a really important topic you brought up. David, is the fact that most economic, powerful cities, whether it's New York or DC or Miami or London or Paris, Singapore, they're all sitting on the body of water. And if you don't take care of them, you don't drive the economic engine.
I love the way you look at infrastructure management. You mentioned that, you joined DC water because the board wanted a new vision and new set of priorities. What are they? And how far have you come in realizing this vision?
David: Well, I'm not totally sure that the board wanted a new vision and all of that.
This was a utility that I think that many had revered in the highest regard, you know, from the standpoint of innovation and those sorts of things. I think what I brought to DC water was a different way of running a utility. And the way that I wanted to run the utility was first of all, was to assemble the best talent that I could, especially from at the top that worked directly for me.
And so when I came here to DC Water, I assessed that team. I now have a team that's in place. I came here, there were 12 direct reports. I narrowed that down to where there's only seven direct reports. So I reorganized the organization. That was the very first thing that I did was the reorganize it from the top.
And I felt like that the leadership team should look like the employees and that the leadership team should look like the customers that we serve. And DC is a very diverse community. And as a result of that, in place we have now of the seven direct reports, three of them are women and there were no women on the senior executive team.
When I came the three women there was two individuals that are Caucasian, and then we have three African-American males on the team. And this team really looks like the utility and it looks like the city that we serve. And I think that's important that you have those sorts of things in place. And so that was one of the very first things that I did.
And the other thing I wanted to do, I wanted to run a utility based on KPIs. I wanted to look at those key performance indicators that other utilities are doing. We captured those through AWWA. We use them as a partner and we're now measuring what we do here at the utility on a day-to-day basis. And when measuring some of those things, we weren't as good as we thought that we should be, or we weren't where we thought that we should be.
And as a result, it allowed us to set goals. I also felt that there needed to be a strategic plan in place. One that was not just developed by staff or by senior executive team, or just developed by the board. We went out in the community and we talked to customers. We talked to board members, we talked to everyone we could talk to in developing our new strategic plan, blueprint to plan.
We put that together. And that became our roadmap that began to establish our goals and so forth and so on. And then we wanted to look at our responsibilities, from an operation standpoint, who does, what, how does it impact others? And then we wanted to eliminate silos. This was an organization that was very siloed organization.
Things were done in silos and they needed to be done more in a team approach. And then I'll put a couple of other things in place. For example, the values that we live by every single day, being accountability, everyone needs to be accountable for their actions and things that they do, internally. and also with the customers. We have to be able to trust each other. Everyone's got to be able to trust each other. The next one was teamwork, looking at the organization and looking at your team members and teammates and working together from a teamwork standpoint. And then our customer focus, focus on the customers and the stakeholders that we have.
And then there was safety. Individuals come to work, every single day. And if they're healthy, when they come to work, it is my job to send them back home, to their loved ones in the same manner that they came to work. And that's important to me. Employees should not be getting hurt here at work, and then the well-being of all employees and that well-being really carried over into see what we did with the pandemic.
We cared about. We got people out of the building ASAP, we got them into their homes. We also turned back on all individuals whose water had been turned off in DC. We turned their water back on because that's about well-being. We also didn't turn anyone off for almost two years. If you didn't pay your bill that's well-being, because we knew that individuals needed water to wash their hands and fight the pandemic.
When you look at all of those things and you put them together, we began to build what I call an organization that is focused on people, place, and pay. And first of all, when you talk about the people hiring the best, retaining the best and attracting the best people in the industry that come to work at DC Water.
The next one is place, creating a place for all that. Everyone wants to work and be a part of what we do on a day-to-day basis. And then last but not least pay, I wanted to make sure that everyone was fairly paid and we had a level playing field and in doing so, one of the things that came on to that, that we don't talk about a lot here at DC Water is 33% of our staff are women. 50% of the increases or the adjustments we had to make in pay, 50% of those were done for women. So we saw some of the inequities and we brought equity into place internally and externally for the organization. And I feel like that's what I was brought here to do, and we're on the right track and we're going in the right direction.
Mahesh: David, that's an incredibly busy schedule in terms of what you changed from KPI reorganization. Bringing down silos, enhancing the pace, remix of your leadership team, that reflects your utility customer. Collaboration, on and on. I mean, I used to advise fortune 500 CEOs in my past life.
You talk like a fortune 500 CEO. Exactly those words. And I find fascinating, you know, every time a new CEO comes, they keep few good things, but the change few things. Now you have honestly addressed a lot of that in the previous question. So I don't want to rehash that, but can you tell me one thing that you kept because it was so good?
And the one thing you really changed that you felt was a hallmark of your leadership that you brought in, would that be?
David: Well, first of all, you talk about change. And I think that one of the mistakes that CEOs do make is they immediately start making changes. They feel like that's their brand. What I did was I had a 90-day plan and my 90-day plan was I didn't touch anything.
I didn't change anything. I sat, I listened. I'm a people person. I walk around. My management style is to walk around and manage and sit down and talk with people. And I did that in the first 90 days. I said, I listened, I paid attention. I watched things that went on at the authority and after 90 days, that's when I decided here are some of the things that I think that we need to do.
One of the big things that the change that I've made is silo. I wanted to break down the silos. I wanted individuals to start because when you make a change in your part of the organization, you have to understand it has an impact on other parts of the organization. And if you're in a siloed approach, you're not paying attention to the other parts of the organization.
I think that from the standpoint of what I kept and what I liked, it was the people, these are great people here. And as the individuals that come in every single day in, through the pandemic, they put their lives on the line every single day to come here and work because they couldn't work from home. They had to come here and we tried to give them the PPE that they needed to have in place in order to survive through the pandemic.
But for me, it was about getting to know the people and not changing the people. I knew I couldn't change the whole authority from top to bottom, but I wanted to look at what's the culture? What do people want the culture to be? And that's how we came up with these values because people said this was the culture that they wanted and we put these values in place and we began to socialize the values.
We put the strategic plan in place, and we brought individuals in to talk to us about the strategic plan. One of the things I did was this is not a top down organism. We are top-down. We're bottom up. We're sideways. We're doing it all the way across the organization. We've got a retreat coming up where it's going to be about 150 individuals that we're bringing together from DC Water.
And from a leadership standpoint, from foreman, all the way up to the CEO, we're going to spend time together. Two or three days off site and take some time to really understand how we want the authority to go forward. And so for me, it was about listening and learning because the individuals were already doing the work and I wanted to keep those individuals in place.
Wanted to keep those individuals and motivate them and give them the opportunity to contribute to the organization. It's really
Mahesh: fascinating. And it just, it's a different part of the question. I want to ask you. Crisis teaches you new things. As a CEO, I have become in the last two years, a much more empathetic CEO.
That's not an issue with you because I can tell you had it ingrained in you, but how are you a different CEO in the last two years compared to pre-pandemic? Has it changed anything in you?
David: Oh, without a doubt. No doubt about it. And the whole pandemic piece, I became even more sympathetic, empathetic, whatever it is that you want to call it.
But being able, I think over the years and being here in DC, because DC is a different environment than Indianapolis. Just the, you know, the west coast Midwest. And so I've become a more open individual more transparent than I've ever been before. So it has changed me as an individual.
I have also, you know, you hear the empathy now, but I've began to move towards understanding how to be a "feeler. One of the things I'm a big fan of is MBTI, to be able to understand how you communicate and how others communicate with you. So my entire team, we have taken the MBTI. We're really entrenched in it and we understand each other.
I understand my team members. Some are what I call deliberate thinkers. They take time to think about something and you have to draw them in. You may have to go immediately to them and just say, what's your thought? And so I've become, I think a much better leader than when I first came here.
And so I have definitely grown as a CEO and as a leader and being entrenched in our nation's capital. And so it has definitely helped me. I love it.
Mahesh: Now talk about investments. We are at the cusp of an historic bipartisan infrastructure funding. But put aside that, where are you focused operationally and on capital investments in the next five years? Where are you putting your money?
David: First of all, I look at us as an organization where equity has to come in. And equity for us, it includes minority, small businesses, women owned businesses, doing business with them and those sort of things and equity with our employees, but also equity from the standpoint of water quality.
And that is very, very important. So when you think about water quality, one of the things you have to think about is in DC, we still have lead pipes in the ground. No one should be drinking from a lead service line no more. Okay. So it should be zero. And so we've employed the whole Lead Free DC concept.
We've got about 28,000 lead service lines in the district. We're removing those service lines by 2030. That's one of the places we're putting our money. The other places you have approximately 80% of our pipe that we have in the ground today is 80 plus years old. Okay. And we all know in the business that the life expectancy is pretty close to that. So a hundred years to 110 years, you're lucky if you get that out of a piece of pipe, but you also have corrosion in this pipe and those sorts of things.
And even though we're treating the water at the highest level, they're still can present a water quality issue then. So we're focusing on our small diameter pipe. And being able to replace and remove a small diameter pipe that we have in place. That's where we're putting our money. And then the last place that we're putting our money is that we are under a consent decree.
And so under that consent decree, we built our deep tunnels and we want to get to a point where there's zero excursion into the rivers and the streams. And so we're almost there. We'll be done in three to four years with that project, the largest project ever in the district's history from an infrastructure standpoint.
And then last but not least flooding. Flooding is a place where we are putting our money in as well. And so I currently sit on the mayor's task force regarding flooding. And so it's all of those things that we're taking a look at and operating and managing the utility and taking care of our constituents and customers and the visitors that come to DC.
There's more than 20 plus million visitors that come to DC. We just had a great cherry blossom event here in DC. And all the visitors came, and we want them to be able to drink the water that we have and experience a great experience in DC. And again, we're part of that economic engine that brings individuals to DC.
Mahesh: Yeah, it is one of my favorite cities and my wife's THE favorite city. Absolutely. Terrific. I want to switch gears a little bit. You have expertise in how private firms can deliver value to municipalities. You did this in a previous job, right? Or previous role as a CEO, and you've spoken about this at the US conference of mayors, National League of Cities and National Association of Public Private Partnerships.
What does that playbook look like? And what has that experience taught you? This is a different role and a different mindset.
David: Well, I think it is a different mindset. I'm not sure it's a different role. My mindset is it should be run like a business. That sounds foreign to some people. When you say something should be, run like a business.
And I think that's where my commercial experience and private experience helps me in running an organization and making decisions as if you know, it's my money. It's investor's money. And those investors are the rate payers. That's the only switch instead of having stocks and those sorts of things that are being traded.
We now have rate payers. This is the rate payers’ money, and it should be used in the best way that it can be used in. And every single time we want to do something, we should be thinking about the rate payers and the best interest that the money should be used. But for me, I run the utility like a business. And I think that is a mindset that I have that is different than maybe a public utility or whatever it may be. So I do understand and recognize that is a difference for me.
Mahesh: And by the way, that is something I believe the sector needs for the coming decades. Exactly. Running a utility like a business. There's probably books you can write or op-eds you can do on it.
I want to talk about technology because technology made a big difference, whether it's automotive sector, financial sector, retail sector, et cetera. What is the role of technology in water infrastructure and what are you most excited about?
David: So technology plays a big role in the water business, ranging from the standpoint of asset management. And having the correct technology in place to look at your system and begin to move away from where some utilities are, I think it was called, for them, it's a break fix. You know, they wait until it breaks and then they fix it. The way I think that we should be doing it, we should be doing more asset management. And we are at DC Water. We know how many times have you serviced whatever it may be. That pump. And in servicing that pump, if you're spending a lot of money in servicing that pump, when does it come time to replace it? And when does that access cross? And so I think asset management plays a huge role from a technology standpoint, but also the ability to look at your system and understand when you need to replace pipe, what pipe needs to be replaced, the treatment process.
You have technology, you know, we live it every single day at. We have the largest advanced wastewater treatment plant in the world and the water that we're putting back out into the Potomac and the Chesapeake Bay is better than the water that we took in. And the water that continues to exist in it. So there's technology, you know, the aerobic digesters, you know, our ability to take leaves and food and waste from the schools and those sort of things.
That's where we want to get to. So technology comes into play around all those sort of things. So things that we do and that we do here. Technology is definitely involved in what we do on a day-to-day basis and having great technology I think makes you one of the best utilities in the country. And that's where innovation comes in at for us, we are focused on innovation and it's not just individuals in different clusters looking at innovation, but we have an individual at the top of our organization that's in charge of innovation. And we look at innovation every single day and make it a part of whatever it is we need to do to change what we're doing. And sometimes it creates savings and allows us to stop doing things that we shouldn't be doing. And to do the things that we shouldn't be. So I think innovation is fantastic for us.
And, we're currently from an innovation standpoint, you know, from a solar standpoint, we're, moving in a direction at Blue Plains where 30% of the energy is alternative energy. Now we're getting the energy off of the grid. So it's through our treatment process, or through the solar that we've put in place at Blue Plains.
And we plan to continue to build on that. Of course, as an organization, we're moving in the direction of the electric vehicles and those sort of things. And so that's another innovation piece, I'm actually looking at seeing how do we become those stations? You know, beginning to put together stations where we can help citizens refuel their vehicles from an electric standpoint.
So all those things innovations at the top of our list on a day-to-day basis.
Mahesh: It sounds like you're attacking the water energy nexus with the solar stuff and you're also attacking the circular economy. You're taking all this based and converting into a beautiful energy, clearly creating the future in that respect.
David: And not only energy, you know, we have a product. We're taking that resource that comes to us, the waste, and we're turning it into that fertilizer or soil blend that individuals can use and potting and those sorts of things at their homes. And we're actually selling it at the neighborhood hardware stores here in the District of Columbia. So it was a number of things that we're doing from that standpoint.
Mahesh: Yeah, definitely creating the circular economy that I think is critical. Now I want to talk about ESG. It's a very thematic topic. What are your strategies? How are you measuring your progress? Because you're big into KPIs on the ESG side. And then will it become part of our DNA? So we don't have to call it ESG. It's just a way of business. What's your perspective on it?
David: Well, first of all, we are the first public utility that has produced an ESG. report We don't know anyone else that has produced an ESG report. And our understanding is that we are the first and the only one to attack this item. I would say though, that here at DC Water, we have been looking at ESG and we didn't call it ESG, but we've been doing it for a long time.
And so it's amazing how something, you know, catches an acronym. And you look at it though, and you analyze insights. We've been doing it. We have been looking at every one of our projects and seeing if equity is involved in that project. We look at the governance. We look at the social and economic piece of every project that we do.
So ESG is built into all of our projects. When we move forward on them, they're built into all of our projects and managing. Do we go forward or not? When we're putting together our CIP program, ESG becomes part of putting together that capital program. It's a spinoff of our strategic plan as well. So we are living ESG every single day in the authority as we advance it forward.
Mahesh: Right now it's clearly an important topic. And I feel like in five years from now, they're not going to talk about... name this topic anymore.
So climate and water, their interdependencies are well-known. We don't have to define how they depend on each other, from floods to droughts, to, you know, ocean rising and fires.
What is your roadmap? You said you were part of the mayor's council on flooding, et cetera. What is your roadmap to creating a resilient water system in DC?
David: That is a great question. And part of our role is, you know, first of all, anytime anyone sees water, they think about DC Water. It doesn't matter where the water may come from.
So we play an important role when it comes to water. Our goal is to eliminate the flooding in DC. We want to be able to stand up to those 15-year storms. We know that those 15-year storms that we used to measure, we're getting hundred year storms. Instead of those 15 years storms already coming to us, you know, quicker than a hundred years, of course, we're seeing three, four years apart maybe, and there's no way to ever build a system that can handle that hundred year storm.
But what we want to do is protect our residents. And so we have a backlflow prevention program that we have in place. And we're paying up to $5,000 to install that for individuals that are in those flood planes, that we know flooding is definitely harmful or can come into those areas. We're also looking at how can we use, and we do utilize our deep tunnels that we have in play today to help alleviate some of that flooding that occurs.
So we had a storm a couple of years ago. Where it was just an incredible amount of rain that dropped in a two-hour period and it flooded parts of DC. There were other parts though. And of course, we talked about the negative things, but there were other parts of DC that would have flooded in the past, if not for the deep tunnel projects that we've put in place.
And so we know that we play an important role in attempting to battle floods and other changes that are occurring in the climate. And so we're working very, very hard with our mayor, Mayor Muriel Bowser. She has been a great supporter of DC Water and continues to support us. And we continue to work together with her team, DDOT, and other parts of the mayor's administration to alleviate flooding.
And also DOEE, one of the chairman of our board is the director at DOEE. And he's definitely entrenched and trying to make sure that we are impactful in the community as well.
Mahesh: Well, it's good to have an elected official, fully aligned with the vision just makes life easy. Isn't it?
David: Definitely, yes.
Mahesh: I want to talk about a very important word in this sector called change.
Change in water, changing how utilities operate, changing how residents consume. Changing how politicians think about water infrastructure and changing water rates and so on. How do you drive change management in your organization?
David: First of all, in our organization, we have not only brought change, but it's been transformation.
You know, we look at it as transformation and it's sitting down and when we're talking with our employees or when we're talking with the elected officials, you know, council members and the mayor, we've employed, what I think should be deemed change management and also, transformation. And transformation is strong.
Transformation is tough as well. And it takes a lot of work when you're transforming an organization versus just changing an organization. Changing to me is just maybe a twisting of a knob. Transformation is huge. Transformation is walking out on that plank and taking a risk and taking chances and those sorts of things and transformation takes a lot of what I call transparency.
And for individuals to understand where you're trying to go with the organization, where you're trying to guide the organization to, and at the beginning of transformation, it can look as things are a little wobbly, but once you get everybody focused on transformation and what their goal is, and from an operational standpoint, it works.
And we have done that. We have transformed this authority into an authority. For example, we do things with the carrot versus a stick. We work together as an organization. That was transformation. People operated and treated people in a different manner than what I think that people should be treated. I'm not saying one's right or wrong.
It's just what I believe. And I believe that individuals should use a carrot versus a stick. Individuals should talk. Individuals should be involved in performance reviews and helping individuals develop as we move across the authority, creating opportunities for individuals in the authority, but the number one is to create a level playing field that everyone feels that they can achieve not only their job, but look forward to doing something different if that's what they want to do in the future. So we have been in a world of, I think, it's transformation versus just change management. Is the way that I've seen it.
Mahesh: Right. So I should have asked a different question then. How will your transforming the sector, than how are you changing? But it is a strong word. It is a strong word. I agree with you.
David: It is strong. And one of the ways, which I talked about them earlier, but one of them is about being able to build a culture and have a culture in place that everyone can live with. Being able to have values in place that everyone understands and that they can adhere to. Being able to have that strategic plan in place, to have an executive team in place that understands where the organization wants to go, being able to socialize all of these things throughout the organization. I've seen a lot of organizations have great ideas, but those ideas only stay at the top. And only the people at the top know about them. We drive these things down throughout the entire organization. I have town halls where there may be 200 or 300 people sitting in the room.
And I answer every single question of the employees. I have a relationship with the employees. That's transformation. That is a huge, huge change in this organization to have the CEO be able to know and understand what individuals are looking for and where they're wanting to go. I am connected with this organization and for me, that's one of the things that I think is different than what we've had in the past here at DC water.
Mahesh: Right? No fascinating, fascinating. Which actually leads me to my next question. My favorite question, because as a CEO, I always like to learn from other peers how they'd run it. There's always a good nugget you can pick up, right? Now, you have accumulated tremendous leadership lessons over the last years.
Can you kind of describe, I'm going to keep it really crisp, on your side. What are the top three lessons that you've learned that can be given as a guidance to a leader who wants to run an infrastructure, business? Water, infrastructure business? What would that be?
David: You know, for me, I would take the label off of it, a water infrastructure business, and it's to run a business and to be a leader of people.
You asked for three, the first one is for me to be an individual that will listen to the people. That's the very first thing I think that you have to be able to do. People want to know that you're listening to them and there are great ideas. You know, I don't just learn things from other CEOs. I learn from employees.
From employees that are cleaning up in janitorial type roles. I'm speaking with those employees as well and all the way up to individuals on the senior executive level that I'm speaking with. As I travel around the country, I'm talking to other CEOs and understanding what they're faced with and we confer and talk about how we overcame some of those things.
So I think the first thing is to be a people person. And to be able to listen and understand and accommodate and work with people. The second item for me as a leader is to be compassionate. Treat people the way you would want to be treated, take yourself and put yourself in their shoes. Instead of thinking that you're in the ivory tower all the time, get out of the ivory tower, get down into the biles of the organization and work with people and understand what they are faced with on a day-to-day basis.
And I think the last one is to reward individuals. And that doesn't always come in the way of money. You know, one of the things that I do is we listen to customers and what they write to us and tell us about our employees. And if employees get caught doing something well, I bring that employee in front of the entire board of directors to our board meeting.
And I give them a token of our appreciation from DC water and we hand them a gift. For doing the right thing and helping customers. And so I think it's that reward. And so for me, I think those are the three things that I cast in stone and put in the front of me whenever I am faced with difficult decisions, working with employees and so forth.
Mahesh: These are all the three ingredients of an emotional intelligence leader.
David: Correct.
Mahesh: And that's hard for an engineer. To develop these kinds of things. It's not every engineer, because the engineers think differently, but clearly it's fascinating to lay those traits to be successful in this business.
David: That's why engineers have to bring a great team together around them to help them with their weaknesses. If that's a weakness, then they need to surround themselves with those type of people. I've surrounded myself with people that are feelers. I've surrounded myself with people that are gung ho, go hard, and make quick decisions.
And that's just on the feeler on the emotional intelligence piece, but I've surrounded myself with what I think is the best team that there is in the water business today.
Mahesh: It's an art, not a science. Isn't it? The way you described it. Yeah. Last question everyone thinks about. If there's one thing moving forward, what do you want your legacy to be?
David: You know, I've had a great career. I really, really have, and I'm not quite done yet. You know, I'm getting close to the end of that row, but I've had a great career. And I think for me, my legacy that I want is that I treat people fair. That's what I want. When they think of David Gadis, I want people to be able to say he treated people fairly.
He gave everybody an opportunity, regardless if you were black, white, brown, purple. Regardless if you were gay, a lesbian or whatever it might be. It does not matter to me. I treat people with the utmost respect and give everybody an opportunity that wants to be part of DC Water. And that's what I want my legacy to be.
I want people to say he was fair. You know, there's projects out here I think that I've done and people will look back at Lead Free DC. And they may say that was David Gadis. People may look back and look at the great building that we moved into and say that was part of David Gadis, his legacy or other projects that we're looking at and being able to change what I think.
It, it changes the game, being able to deliver energy with water and those sorts of things from your sewer pipes and all those sort of things. Those are game changers. But for me, I want people to be able to say he was fair. He was a great guy. He was fair. And he always took out time to talk to me or to listen to my ideas. And that's what I want people to think from a legacy standpoint.
Mahesh: So David, this has been a 45 minutes of absolute exhilarating conversation. You run the utilitylike a business. You're a third-generation water professional that broke the ceiling and became CEO of one of the most important utilities in the country and the world, in fact, And you're running an economic engine in DC, made a whole lot of transformations within the organization. And really what I call an emotional intelligence leader. I enjoyed not only a lot, but I learned a lot in this conversation. I don't thank you for being part of this.
David: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Mahesh: It's been great for me as well, and I've enjoyed it. I hope we can do it again sometime.