Gov901

Doug McGowan

Person

MLGW's President and CEO since December 2022

From: https://www.mlgw.com/about/execs_presidentceo Doug McGowen is MLGW's President and CEO and has served in that role since December 2022. McGowen most recently served as the Chief Operating Officer for Mayor Jim Strickland and the City of Memphis. As Chief Operating Officer, McGowen directly oversaw all city operating departments and related agencies. From March 2020 to March 2022, he also led the Memphis and Shelby County COVID-19 Joint Task Force, coordinating all aspects of a successful pandemic response. Passionate about making Memphis a better place to live and work, McGowen also serves as Board Chair of the Mid-South American Heart Association and Board Chair for Explore Bike Share. Immediately prior to his COO role, he served as Director of the Innovation Team for the City of Memphis (now Innovate Memphis) and headed the Memphis Sexual Assault Kit Task Force. Prior to joining the city team, McGowen served as a commissioned officer in the United States Navy, retiring as a Captain in 2011 after 26 years of service. His last assignment was as Commanding Officer of the Naval Base in Millington, TN. McGowen also served as Commanding Officer of Strike Fighter Squadron ONE ZERO TWO, Chief Operating Officer for the US Navy Recruiting Command, and Chief Operating Officer for Carrier Air Wing NINE. During his career, McGowen completed multiple overseas deployments and participated in combat operations during Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm and Operation Enduring Freedom flying the F-14 TOMCAT and later the FA-18F Super Hornet. McGowen holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Virginia Military Institute and an M.A. in National Security from the United States Naval War College. Born in Meadville, PA, McGowen and his family are proud to call Memphis home. • Annual Financial Disclosure: https://www.mlgw.com/images/content/files/Disclosures26/Doug%20McGowen%202026%20Financial%20Disclosure.pdf

Speaking turns

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 2:17

  Thank you, Madam Chair. Doug McGowan, Memphis Light Gas and Water 220 South Main Street. Today we bring forward $4.9 million worth of approvals. These cover multi-year contracts for work we need to do at Memphis Light Gas and Water to maintain reliable and resilient utilities. The first item is partial funding of pollution control groundwater quality control program. This is partial because this is MLGW's share. Uh we charge 55 cents per meter in our system. We provide this to the Shelby County Health Department for their groundwater control board as do the other water systems in Shelby County, Bartlett, Carville, Germantown, Millington. uh this uh provides them the resources that they need to do uh study of the groundwater to prevent contamination. They do sampling and monitoring of existing wells uh particularly private wells since we do that uh most of the water systems do that on their own and report to the county. So uh this is our part here and there's been a lot of dialogue about making sure that the pollution control groundwater quality control program is fully funded. Next is a project that will replace water manes in the vicinity of South 2nd Street and Union Avenue, approximately one block to the east and one block to the south. If you think about this, uh to the north and west of the Peabody Hotel, we will be replacing a 12-in water man and an 8 in water man. You will recall over the last few years that area has been torn up several times because of water mane breaks. It's a very old water man. We have flooded the basement of uh the Peabody several times and so uh we committed that we would just replace this entire section because patching is clearly not working. Uh we patched successfully several times the areas that were broken and then downstream we'd get another break. So our team has assessed and said it's time uh to replace this line in total because there is so much infrastructure there and so many businesses that are around there. So, this will be a project that will start this winter and take probably about a year or so. The next is meter data data interval analysis. This is a five-year contract with LBMC. Now, because we have advanced meters, we take samples of our meters every 30 minutes. And what that you can see on the graph here, this tells us how our customers are using energy, when they're using their energy, and it helps us predict where our peaks will be and what kind of infrastructure we need. So we talk about using batteries for peak shaving. Well, this will help us determine when do we dispatch those batteries to make sure we hit that peak. So this software analysis allows us to make sure we hit that uh the peaks right and allows us to forecast into the future uh changes in the way that our customers are using energy. So critically important for our folks to manage the electric load in our system. The next is uh purchase of standard concrete posttops. for purchasing 320 of these. Uh these are the concrete posttops that you'll see where there are street lights in and around the city. Uh these are hollow concrete with the wires that go up through the inside and they're installed places where we need a new posttop or places typically where uh drivers have knocked them down. So this is just a recurring purchase of those posttops. Unrelated to that, these are the Luminere flood lights in the 1000 watt equivalent. These are the very high power lights. 661 of these that we use uh for our street light inventory for expansions. There are several areas where we're adding new street lights and this goes back to replace ones that again have been damaged or knocked down um and are no longer serviceable across the territory. The next request is for $1.7 million over 24 months. We have about an 11 million budget for purchasing wire. This is $1.7 million of that. Uh this is purchasing uh this is the high voltage wire that we use for distribution of electric power across our system. It's 405,000 ft just or 405,000 linear feet. That is 76 miles of wire that comes on these large spools that we will use um to both extend services and also replace services when it is time to replace the wires in our distribution system either because of failure or because of age. Subject to your question that concludes my presentation for the consent agenda items. So this is the pollution control water quality control program. This is with the Shelby County Health Department. This is allows them to do the monitoring. Let me talk since you asked the question about Caesar. We have two programs, two contracts that we um have. One is with Caesar and that is we're in the second uh second phase of that study. We provide all of the data that we have on our wells. They look at all of our wells. They help us determine where we can position wells uh so we don't introduce hazards into at the at the macro level. We also have the USGS contract and they're doing more micro level with the specific placement of wells in and around our well fields so that we don't hazard any contaminants in there. So two contracts Caesar has a broad ranging one that helps us overall manage and USGS is looking specifically at placement of wells in our well field. And then the pollution control groundwater quality control program is making sure that they can track uh the flow of contaminants across the county if there are any and to make sure that individual wells are not having any contaminants in them. So it's a monitoring and a testing program here that we all contribute to. Yes, that is the [clears throat] Shelby County Health Department. Caesar has access to all of our information. They have, you know, free access because we have a contract with them and and so we provide all of our data. We do not have access to the private well data. The Shelby County Health Department has that information. And so I think that's where they're looking for that data. And I don't know that it's uh there's any real limitation here. I think we just need to do a better job of coordinating across the county on that kind of thing. So, but we're not we're not in the middle of that engagement.

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 8:20

  My next slide?

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 8:20

  Yes, sir.

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 8:20

  It is.

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 8:20

  This is an area that has been broken and repaired multiple times. So we have multip we've introduced more vulnerabilities. So is there assessment for why we're doing that section. Come on up. Come on up here. Yeah. Introduce yourself and let them know what we're talking about here. So uh Yeah. No, absolutely right. This is a this is one of those questions. We'll be talking about this with our budget. We have to balance uh the amount of cash that we have, the amount of borrowing that we do, and the amount of work we have to do across system with the rates. And as you know, we're coming with a request for the rate increase if our board approves that. And so there's going to be questions about how much do we have to invest now versus delaying in the future. That's always the question. So, uh over time we have delayed investments. uh that has not been our practice here. We have taken a strategic approach to getting those most critical things that are most important. So critically when I got here we had uh some water mane breaks and we didn't have enough production to overcome that. So we invested heavily in new production making sure we had enough wells to produce enough water to to get past any breaks. Then we had some vulnerabilities in our uh filtering system. So we had to make sure we get those filters back up to speed. And then along the way we also have been doing lead service line replacements because that became a need here too as well as replacing um the infrastructure under the ground. Now the other thing I asked the team for was give me an analysis of what we could do to to predict the failure of the water lines and there is not real good science out there for how you predict the failure of that like there is for an electric transformer or a circuit breaker. we have pretty good idea about how they're performing. A water main either works or it doesn't. So, this is all about prioritization. So, I if I had um all of unlimited funds, we would definitely be uh replacing water manes before they break before she before they broke um on a regular and recurring basis. But we are balancing uh what everybody wants us to do to make sure that we stay affordable and that we minimize the amount of impact. Uh so we think this is the precise kind of thing we need to do. We we have a really good sense of where these things are vulnerable, where they're breaking. And so uh in the order of priorities once we get some of these other major like production components, we may be able to get into that probably in a few years.

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 12:24

  Sure.

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 12:24

  We we certainly have an idea of of the things we'd like to do that we think are prudent, but again, we're going to have prudence because I know this is a community of many needs, Dr. Warren, and and we want to make sure that we're balancing what we need to, you know, we just want to make sure we're on target with that. So, so we'll definitely have uh some ideas about that and where we could use a little additional help.

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 14:25

  My idea of balancing is making sure that we meet the basics. We have to fund all of the preventative maintenance. We have to fund all of the uh all of the recurring maintenance. So, we have to renew and replace infrastructure. And that's exactly what you're talking about here is renewing and replacing infrastructure when and before it fails. So,

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 14:25

  Yes, ma'am. They are everybody. I think it's like 55 cents per meter that we all pay. So, the number of meters that they have, that's how much money flows into the program.

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 14:25

  This is an annual contribution.

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 14:25

  Uh these the we call them post tops, concrete post tops. That means that the light fixture sits on top of the post. You know, there are some that have the gooseeneck arm that sticks out and the like the this slide. That luminere will sit on one of those arms that sticks out on these concrete post tops. They're the decorative posts that go into the ground and then the light fixture sits on top typically with a globe on it. That's why we call it a posttop. So, this is the concrete standard. This is the light pole and then there's a posttop light that sits on top. That's why it's called the posttop. Yes, ma'am. Our uh claims department does a good job of trying to recover resources when we can um if it is known and if the vehicle is still there and if many times we see a pole knocked down and there's no no evidence, there's nobody there on the scene. So, but when we know somebody has caused damage to the system, our team will work to recover a claim from that damage. So, I think it's how many millions of dollars,

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 16:26

  We're just trying to recover the cost for the the full requirements of replacing that pole.

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 16:26

  It depends on the pole that we have. If it's a highmass light on the interstate, that pole's more expensive. These lights, uh, you can see here are a little less expensive than we also have. If it's a wooden pole, um, all in, if we have to change out the pole, it's about $5,000 to do the pole and all the attachments with the labor and everything else. So, it can vary. A street light pole could be several thousand uh just to replace the pole and the lighting uh structure that goes with it. It's more expensive. If they hit the pole and it dra has underground infrastructure and pulls up all the wires, uh, that's more pricey because it's affecting multiple poles. So, it does vary pretty widely.

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 16:26

  Yeah, 8,000. Okay, I was correct. It's about 8,000 to totally replace a wooden pole with all of the attachments to it.

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 18:28

  Thank you, ma'am.

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Transcript references

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 2:17

  present. So today we have one item. It is a discussion on the MLGW consent agenda. All council districts requested by MLGW. President McGawan, you are recognized.

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 2:17

  Thank you, Madam Chair. Doug McGowan, Memphis Light Gas and Water 220 South Main Street. Today we bring forward $4.9 million worth of approvals. These cover multi-year contracts for work we need to do at Memphis Light Gas and Water to maintain reliable and resilient utilities. The first item is partial funding of pollution control groundwater quality control program. This is partial because this is MLGW's share. Uh we charge 55 cents per meter in our system. We provide this to the Shelby County Health Department for their groundwater control board as do the other water systems in Shelby County, Bartlett, Carville, Germantown, Millington. uh this uh provides them the resources that they need to do uh study of the groundwater to prevent contamination. They do sampling and monitoring of existing wells uh particularly private wells since we do that uh most of the water systems do that on their own and report to the county. So uh this is our part here and there's been a lot of dialogue about making sure that the pollution control groundwater quality control program is fully funded. Next is a project that will replace water manes in the vicinity of South 2nd Street and Union Avenue, approximately one block to the east and one block to the south. If you think about this, uh to the north and west of the Peabody Hotel, we will be replacing a 12-in water man and an 8 in water man. You will recall over the last few years that area has been torn up several times

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 10:22

  we've experienced a lot of breaks there as uh President McGawan said earlier and so that's the section that we're targeting with this. Um in the future we may target there will be more sections in and around downtown that we will probably have to target but this is just our first location.

• Memphis City Council Committee Meetings: October 20, 2026 10:22

  I'm I'm thinking tree cut trimming here, Doug.

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