Changes
Steve Mitnick has authored five books on the economics, history, and people of the utilities industries. While in the consulting practice leadership of McKinsey & Co. and Marsh & McLennan, he advised utility leaders. He led a transmission development company and was a New York Governor’s chief energy advisor. Mitnick was an expert witness appearing before utility regulatory commissions of six states, D.C., FERC, and in Canada, and taught microeconomics, macroeconomics, and statistics at Georgetown University.
Since time immemorial, change and our adjustments to change, sometimes adroit, oftentimes not, have troubled mankind. Whenever periods of relative stability in history have been interrupted, whether by war, natural disaster, economic devastation, pandemic, or political upheaval, cultural norms are scrambled. Altogether new norms emerge. Though only once a stability is restored.
There are countless examples. One is when America’s utilities confronted wartime after the seventh of December in 1941. Forty-four months later they entered a period not imaginable before.
The December 4, 1941 issue of Public Utilities Fortnightly said: