State President, Duke Energy Indiana
Before becoming State President, Duke Energy Indiana, Melody Birmingham-Byrd served as senior vice president of Duke Energy’s Midwest delivery operations. Before that, Byrd served as vice president of the Southern Region for Progress Energy Carolinas.
PUF's Steve Mitnick: Melody, you have major responsibilities at Duke. Can you talk a little about what you do day-to-day?
Melody Birmingham-Byrd: Absolutely. I am president of Duke Energy Indiana, a regulated utility. We provide electric service to over 820,000 customers across 23,000 square miles of service territory. We're a vertically integrated utility, and we own approximately 6,800 megawatts of generation. Duke Energy Indiana serves sixty-nine of the ninety-two counties in our state.
My responsibilities include the financial performance of Duke Energy's regulated utility in Indiana, managing state and local regulatory and government relations, and community affairs.
I also have responsibility for advancing the company's rate and regulatory initiatives and generation asset planning.
PUF: Can you talk a little about diversity spend and some things that you're doing in that regard?
Melody Birmingham-Byrd: Duke Energy is the largest electric utility company in the state of Indiana. We play a very important role within the state. We work very closely with state, regional, and local agencies to help promote economic development, as well as supporting diversity in supplier engagements.
We focus on the relationships we have with suppliers to make sure we include diverse and local suppliers throughout the supply chain.