Jeffrey D. Butler, president of Connecticut Light & Power Co., resigned Thursday after a brutal few weeks in which he became the lightning rod for outrage — and the public face of failures by the utility — following two paralyzing storms that left hundreds of thousands of customers in the dark for as long 11 days.
The resignation was announced by parent company Northeast Utilities, which also reported other management changes it hopes will improve the utility’s emergency preparedness and performance.
In an interview with The Courant, NU Chairman Charles W. Shivery said Butler was not forced out, nor did top management at NU suggest that he step aside. But Butler, he said, “realized it was going to be a challenge” for the company if he stayed on.
“I think he recognized that it would be a distraction to allowing CL&P to move forward, and being the pro that he is, he offered his resignation,” Shivery said.
At the state Capitol, many had suspected Butler would depart after the company’s much-criticized response to the devastating one-two punch of Tropical Storm Irene in August and the October snowstorm.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s senior adviser, Roy Occhiogrosso, released a statement saying: “Gov. Malloy made clear that he thought Northeast Utilities needed to address CL&P’s management issues, and it’s clear that process has begun. It’s also likely that there will be other changes on other fronts as a result of CL&P’s performance in the lead-up to and aftermath of the storm.”
In twice-a-day, high-profile, televised news conferences after the Oct. 29 storm, Malloy stood closely with Butler as they delivered the bad news of the outages. As the days wore on, Malloy and Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman both left the room when Butler stepped to the podium to speak — a sign they had lost confidence in the utility chief.
James A. Muntz, NU president for transmission, will fill in as president and chief operating officer at CL&P while a search is conducted for a permanent replacement. Muntz will report to Lee Olivier, executive vice president and chief operating officer at NU. Olivier was also Butler’s boss.
Butler’s resignation comes amid a number of investigations of the utility’s — and others’ — handling of the storms. Friday morning, one of the investigating boards, Malloy’s Two Storm Panel, will hear testimony from first responders, including municipal police and fire officials, and from labor union representatives who have blasted inadequate utility company staffing. Earlier this week, mayors and first selectmen, including from hard-hit areas like Simsbury, Somers and West Hartford, blasted the utility before the panel.
NU Chief: Looking For Leadership
Shivery said the company “reluctantly accepted Jeff’s resignation,” citing Butler’s “exceptional” commitment and dedication. Shivery stopped short of citing specific problems with the storm response, saying only that the company did some things well and, he said, “We understand that there are areas that we can improve.”
In the search for the next president, Shivery said, “Clearly we’re going to look for somebody with very broad leadership capabilities.” He said Muntz, who was at CL&P before his corporate transmission job, is “one of our best operating executives” and would be considered for the permanent job if he sought it.
Shivery declined to comment on criticism of Butler’s leadership during the storm cleanup, saying it’s time to move forward. And as for criticism of his own low profile during the outage, Shivery said part of Butler’s job was to be the face of the company.
“Jeff was simply doing his job. I was monitoring the situation,” Shivery said. If it happened again, he said, speaking about his own public profile, “I don’t believe we would approach this storm differently.”
Malloy had said after the storm that Shivery was working at times at CL&P’s emergency operations center.
Regarding the proposed merger of NU and NSTAR, a Boston-based utility, Shivery said, “I don’t think this will have any effect on the merger going forward.”
The deal, which would create a $17.5 billion utility with headquarters in Hartford and Boston, awaits approval by Massachusetts utility regulators and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Connecticut utility regulators are not reviewing the merger. However, the state’s Office of Consumer Counsel, which has been critical of the lack of a review, is challenging the decision.
Paul Franzen, senior utilities analyst at Edward Jones in Chicago, said Thursday that Butler’s departure “will not make or break the merger. … At this point, we believe there is a reasonable likelihood that the merger will be concluded.”
“It is a high-level departure, which highlights how seriously the company is taking the situation,” added Franzen, referring to the outcry over October’s storm. “It’s been an unfortunate situation — lots of people living amidst lots of trees is not a good mix. We are seeing some initial steps to improve preparedness to major storms.”
Butler’s salary and terms of severance are not public because he was not one of the top five executives at Northeast Utilities. His resignation wasn’t the only management change Thursday. Shivery also announced these moves:
The company has retained Davies Consulting Inc. to evaluate CL&P’s “preparedness and response to” the two storms and deliver preliminary findings by the first week of January. A final report is expected in early February.
William J. Quinlan, vice president for customer solutions, will fill a newly created CL&P senior vice president position to lead emergency preparedness. “He will work with state and town officials to put protocols in place to allow CL&P to partner effectively in any type of emergency,” Shivery said in a written NU statement. Quinlan will be the company’s point person for the post-storm reviews being conducted, including the Witt Associates report commissioned by the governor.
Dana Louth, vice president for asset strategy, will fill another new position, vice president for CL&P infrastructure hardening. He will report to Quinlan. “Infrastructure hardening refers to making the electric system more resistant to weather related events. This includes vegetation management, structural hardening, electrical hardening and undergrounding of the electric system,” NU said in a release.
Both Quinlan and Louth testified this week in front of the Two Storm Panel.
Political Reaction
Butler had absorbed criticism from citizens, officials and editorial writers. A police department threatened to hold him responsible for fires made worse by blocked roads, and someone even set up a Twitter account under the name “FakeJeffButler” with needling posts including this one: “The rumors that my gold-plated residential backup generator runs on the refined tears of orphan children are totally unfounded.”
He became a familiar figure on television and in newspaper pages because of his news briefings in the Emergency Operations Center at the State Armory in Hartford, wearily facing skeptical questions from reporters.
Reaction ricocheted around the state Capitol as word spread quickly of Butler’s departure.
“CL&P was unprepared for this storm and failed to adequately respond to the needs of Connecticut’s residents and businesses,” said House Speaker Chris Donovan, who is running for Congress in the 5th District. “The issue is not one individual, but the company’s ability to respond in an emergency. We need a better and more appropriate response in the future, and we look forward to working with CL&P’s new leadership to achieve that.”
Senate Republican leader John McKinney said: “While Mr. Butler’s resignation and other management changes at NU may be appropriate, they alone do not address the real issue. My constituents and people all across Connecticut want to know that CL&P and state agencies have learned from this experience and that a sustained power outage of this magnitude won’t happen again. Until a thorough, independent investigation of the state’s and utility’s response has been completed and reforms have been implemented, we won’t be able to give Connecticut residents that assurance.”
Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said: “I am pleased that the company has acted quickly with a reorganization of senior management and the hiring of a consulting firm to evaluate CL&P’s preparedness and response to these storms. These decisions by the company, however, do not eliminate the need for independent reviews of the company’s performance, currently underway by Witt Associates and the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority.”
In West Hartford, Mayor Scott Slifka said that public schools finally opened the day after Election Day, and the last homeowner got power back after 13 days.
“As angry as I’ve been, I don’t take any pleasure in anyone losing their job,” Slifka said. “This is not about one man. This is about an organization that needs systemic change.”
Slifka said the storm response was clearly mismanaged and included “four to five executives of different sorts parachuting into town at one time or another” and “essentially coming in and throwing a grenade into the situation.”
“The higher you got, the more damage you did,” Slifka said of the executives.
“The first storm was like a dry run with no real consequences. It was a good trial run. So we were very prepared the second time around,” Slifka said. “If CL&P learned anything between storm 1 and storm 2, it certainly wasn’t evident in their performance. This will be in textbooks on how not to manage a crisis.”
Shivery, in his interview with The Courant, said the company did learn lessons from Irene, after which it assigned Quinlan to oversee liaison efforts with the towns. But he said the short time between storms prevented the company from implementing many of the improvements and plans.
“You have to appreciate the amount of devastation that happened during those storms,” Shivery said.
Courant Staff Writers Dan Haar and Janice Podsada contributed to this story.
