Meet Rob Manning

By Brooks Clark

The Executive Vice President of Power System Operations arrived at TVA last August after a North Carolina childhood and 30 years at Duke Power.

Rob Manning’s work ethic is rooted in his childhood. He grew up on a farm 10 miles outside Williamston, N.C. When his parents weren’t growing peanuts, tobacco, soybeans and corn, his mother, Nancy, was a purchasing agent at a textile mill, and his father, Stephen, was a mail carrier.

Later, a roommate at North Carolina State University inspired Manning to be an electrical engineer.

“He worked summers for the local utility and told me what great stuff the utility had to play with,” recalls Manning.

After college, Manning joined Duke Power as an electrical engineer. Over the next 30 years, he worked in all aspects of power distribution and transmission. He earned his Masters in Business Administration from Queens University in Charlotte in 2000, the same year he was named vice president of engineering for Duke Energy Gas Transmission in Houston. Three years later, Manning returned to the electric business as Duke’s vice president, Power Delivery – Field Operations Carolinas, where he oversaw transmission and distribution throughout Duke’s Carolinas region.

Manning says he has had few surprises since he arrived at TVA.

“I did a lot of homework before I left Duke to come here,” he says. “The people here are really good. They are good to each other, and they are skilled, knowledgeable, with a clear sense of the mission for what TVA is about. It’s really wonderful to have a team that works as well as the transmission team at TVA.”

Manning’s leadership philosophy is to:

Do the right thing. Never compromise your company’s values and particularly never compromise your own values.
Know what the right thing is. Do the necessary homework, understand your business or decision well enough that you know how to define what is right.
Have fun. You can work hard and still have a great time at your job and with the great folks we work with.

And his big goals for PSO are:

Safety. Zero injuries, always.
Reliability and Customer Service. We deliver for our customers, always.
Regulatory Compliance. We do our work within the rules, always.
Cost. We complete our work at a competitive cost, always.

In this Issue:

Hot Topics

The Big Cleanup

The Big Cleanup Continues

A Simple Test May Save Your Health

People, Plaudits, and Promotions

Manning unplugged

Best sports memory: He was inspired when he saw the Wolfpack’s David Thompson, who had led N.C. State to the 1974 NCAA basketball title, score 70 points in a single game.

Sport he plays: Manning likes to golf, although he’s been able to play only twice since he arrived in Chattanooga.

Family man: Manning and his wife, Susan, met in high school. They have three daughters: Claire, a nurse in Chapel Hill; Caroline, a historian in Colonial Williamsburg, Va.; and Cameron, a senior at University of North Carolina.