President Joyce Hunter rang the bell to begin our meeting, and dynamo pianist Jody Tull de Salis played My Country Tis of Thee for us all to sing along. Next year’s President, Dawn Johnson, gave a spot-on inspirational welcome thanking DTE for providing our area with energy, and noted that we are our best selves when we create positive energy around us. That positive energy goes into each of our goals and supports those around us. That personal energy focuses us on what really matters in life.
Past President Joanne Marttila Pierson, fronting back up singers Kathy Waugh, Shelley MacMillan and Karen Kerry, lead us in singing a spirited rendition of the Jackie De Shannon’s 1969 hit, Put a Little Love in Your Life.
President Hunter welcomed members, and guests were introduced. Hunter thanked today’s setup team including Jim Edwards, Rob Schiff, Mark Foster, Norman Herbert, Sam Kottamasu, John Sepp, Bill McPherson, Dennis Burke, and Mary Steffek Blaske. Ella Dunajski wished all our members with end-of-September birthday a happy day.
Carolyn Hiatt and Nancy Harrison shared the happy news and photos of Club Member Ugur Cetin’s graduation from the Great Lakes Training Center. They attended the ceremony and shared that Cetin will be working in analyzing weather for the Navy in Mississippi. He will be back in Ann Arbor in January 2025. Cetin, who attended via Zoom, thanked everyone for supporting him.
Dennis Powers took the podium and reminded us of the terrific Rent-a-Rotaractor Program. These UM students can help in your indoor or outdoor fall and winter projects. Make your life easier for you, and help the local Rotaract Club in their pursuit of Service Above Self. Use the Goggle Form on the Ann Arbor Rotary Club’s website.
Leo Shedden and Ed Johnson reported that the previous weekend’s Highway Cleanup was a great success. 18 roadway warriors collected 56 bags of trash in the I-94 entrance ramp area to/from State Street. Thanks to the 14 Rotarians and guest, and 3 Rotaractors who helped! Next cleanup is scheduled for April 2025.
A special Distinguished Service Award presentation was made to Joanne Marttila Pierson for her exception service and living the values of Rotary. Barbara Eichmuller regaled us of many of Marttila Pierson’s acts of professional and Rotary service – including co-chairing the beginning of the UM’s Rotaract Club, serving on the board for youth development, and serving as our Club’s President in 2020-2021. Joanne’s creative ways to engage us via Zoom during the start of Covid – including bringing out the Francesca persona – helped to connect each of us even when we were isolating. She kept us together. The presentation ended with a delightful and heartfelt video chock-full of testimonials from members including Millie Daniels, Barbara Eichmuller, Kathy Waugh, Mark Ouimet, Agnes Reading, Rosemarie Rowney, Norma and Ashish Sarkar. As Reading noted, we joined Rotary for many reasons, but we stay for the friendships – and Joanne is our exemplar.
Bob Buckler introduced today’s keynote speaker, Geraldo Norcia, the CEO of DTE Energy, speaking on “The State and Future of Energy in Michigan.” Norcia’s noted that Dawn Johnson’s inspiration tied in with his talk as he sees his role as CEO (since 2019 and Board Chair since 2022), to improve lives with energy. “The aspiration of DTE is to be the best for the world, for our people, for our community. And that journey never ends.”
DTE Electric serves 2.3M customers in Southeast Michigan and DTE Gas serves 1.3M customers across the State. On average, DTE customers experience reliable power ~99.86% of the time. He noted that weather patterns and severity of storms have intensified and will continue to do so, so DTE has been investing in:
1) fully automating the grid into a smart grid by deploying remote monitoring and control which will allow for faster deployment of crews, enable power to be rerouted during an outage to restore more customers faster;
2) replacing and upgrading poles, cross arms, transformers and other pole top and substation equipment; and to harden the system to reduce outages and increase storm resiliency;
3) rebuilding significant portions of the grid that will convert existing 4.8kV systems to higher voltage, and to eliminate loading constraints on the 13.2kV system; and
4) enhancing their tree trimming plan with a particular focus on specification and quality of work to improve reliability, trouble shoot costs and increase customer satisfaction.
Norcia noted that Last year alone DTE:
* installed 18 smart grid devices so that DTE is on track to automate a quarter of the Ann Arbor system by end of year;.
* replaced 150 older poles with stronger poles and pole-top equipment, so that DTE is on track to replace an additional 200 by end of year;
* made progress on rebuilding four new substations and rebuilding entire circuits that will be competed between 2025 and 2029; and
* trimmed more than 40 miles of trees last year. The entire city will be on a 5-year maintenance trimming cycle by end of year.
Ann Arbor has 46,000 miles of circuitry, 1/3 of it has been built underground since 1960. 16,000 miles of the oldest circuitry was built in the 1920s and much of this needs to be replaced as it is the low-voltage system.
DTE is on pace to invest $360M in Ann Arbor. It has already spent $110M over the past five years and is projecting to spend $250M in the next five years. He noted that 80 circuits serve Ann Arbor and that there is now a full-time Ann Arbor manager who is already preparing for the major summer storms to come in 2025.
When asked about public power, Norcia noted that DTE has significant infrastructure spread out over many communities in many counties that serve many customers. If this infrastructure were to be municipalized, it would cost that municipality a billion dollars to acquire DTE’s assets.
When asked about Fermi III, Norcia said that it is too expensive to build as of now, but DTE will keep the license alive for potential future use.
When asked about outside threats to our power grid, Norcia reassured us that of the 5M times DTE is hacked (mostly from China and Russia who are “shaking the locks to see if there is an easy entry”), the grid is protected by nine layers of protection and supported by the most advanced electric industry knowledge augmented by the CIA, FBI and DoD in a national effort to protect the national grids.
The Rotarians gave Norcia a warm round of applause thanking him for his presentation.
President Hunter asked the Club Members to stand and recite together the 4-way test:
1. Is it the Truth?
2. Is it Fair to all concerned?
3. Will it building Goodwill and Better Friendships?
4. Will it be Beneficial to all concerned?
President Hunter rang the bell to close today’s information-packed meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
Mary Steffek Blaske
Energized Reporter
