Farewell, Jason and Lowrey

CUB has had an extremely lucky run with quality of staff and longevity of staff commitment to our organization and mission. The last time we hired for a new position was almost 5 years ago, and the last time we had to replace a paid staff member was almost 8 years ago. That is all about to change, as two members of our staff have recently moved on. We gathered one week ago tonight with about 50 members of Oregon’s energy community at a farewell party to celebrate the achievements of Jason Eisdorfer and Lowrey Brown.

Jason was CUB’s second paid staff member, brought on board by Executive Director Bob Jenks way back in 1994. Jason was somewhat young and inexperienced at that time (which is the only reason we were able to hire him on at the salary we were offering), and faced not only a steep learning curve in utility issues, but also had to carve out some credibility for CUB, at the time a struggling organization itself. Less than 5 years after joining CUB, Jason was able to lead the negotiation and writing process leading up to the passage of the Oregon Electricity Restructuring Act of 1999, which created the Energy Trust, and gave customers of PGE and Pacific Power access to renewable electricity through Portfolio Options inserts in their bills.

In succeeding years, Jason was Staff Attorney and Energy Program Director during cases such as TPG’s attempted takeover of PGE (we led the ultimately successful forces in opposition), the Oregon Utility Tax Reform Law (ensuring that customers don’t pay to utilities any tax the utility will not be paying to government), and the passage of the Renewable Energy Standard in 2007 (requiring that 25% of Oregon’s electricity come from new renewable sources by the year 2025). In addition, he filed Briefs in every major rate case in Oregon during those 14 years, helping save residential utility customers upwards of $3 billion.

Jason also participated in larger regional discussions by serving on the boards of Renewable Northwest Project, the Energy Trust of Oregon, and the Northwest Energy Coalition. Most recently, he has been a member of the group in Oregon working on Western Climate Initiative goals to address climate change, and so it was perhaps a logical step that he is moving over to Bonneville Power Administration to be their Climate Policy Director. Perhaps most mportantly, he gave his judgment (“No, Bob, you can’t say that!”), knowledge, and humor to Bob and the rest of us here at CUB as our small organization and its influence expanded.

Lowrey literally created the position of Utility Analyst here at CUB, and in doing so she made a huge difference in the amount and quality of work that CUB produced over the last 5 years. Every rate case in which we intervened was built on a foundation of her analysis of the numbers, every document we filed with the Public Utility Commission benefited from her strong writing skills, and CUB was able to extend our reach more effectively into more cases and more areas because of Lowrey’s gift for organizing staff time, needed information, and our small office space.

The TPG case was one in which Lowrey made a huge impact with her analysis and writing, and Lowrey essentially provided the framework for crucial PUC decisions regarding utility power cost adjustment mechanisms, details that most utility customers will never read about, but which will make a significant impact on their bills in the long term. A party attendee toasted Lowrey as one of the smartest and hardest working people they had ever met, and we whole-heartedly agree. She is also intensely curious, which makes for fun conversation twists and turns, and deeply caring, a quality she brings to both relationships and to her work.

A board member recently described our small staff atmosphere as “familial,” and this is true. It was not unusual for lunches to take place communally around the office conference table, talking about kids, gardens, and politics. We tried not to let a week go by without teasing Jason about his hypochondria (largely based on a single instance 10 years ago), and Lowrey about her lack of pop culture exposure (though she did come up with a Laurel and Hardy reference at the farewell party). They took it all in good stride and gave it back in full measure.

Both of these people are utterly irreplaceable. Which makes our current task of replacing them difficult, to say the least. Interviews are going well, and we are confident that we will bring on smart people (perhaps very soon!) who will do good work in the Staff Attorney and Utility Analyst positions at CUB. But there is only one Lowrey and only one Jason, and we miss you both very much. Thanks for your years of serving utility consumers here at CUB.

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