This year, we received 60 nominations in the individual category. Nominators took the time to tell us about their amazing SFPUC colleagues and partners. They thoughtfully shared with us why they nominated these impactful individuals. Their written nominations also give us a view into other departments and areas we may not be familiar with. We hope reading the written nominations will inspire you as much as they did us.

Julia, thank you for having such a profound impact on those around you and SFPUC! 

Award: Stakeholder and Community Interest 

Nominated by: Michael Hyams

I am nominating Julia Allman as an individual who demonstrates an extraordinary commitment to Stakeholder and Community Interest on a daily basis at work. 

I have known Julia now for more than four years since she first started working for the Power Enterprise as a Utility Specialist on the CleanPowerSF team. Over that time, Julia has consistently embodied the SFPUC’s values in the way she approaches her work, fostering trust and engagement with our customers, her colleagues and the communities we serve through open, honest, respectful and timely communication, education and accountability. 

It is clear that Julia loves her work – she is committed to public service and to helping San Francisco become a model community in the way it generates and delivers energy.  Since she started working for the Power Enterprise, Julia has been our go-to person for CleanPowerSF customer engagement and customer program development, often working behind the scenes with our various partners and team members, including our Customer Service Bureau and call center and data management consultant, to ensure a positive experience for our customers. 

Julia has been a customer service guide and teacher for our direct responses to customer inquiries.  As our first true in-house CleanPowerSF customer service leader, Julia has worked closely with and trained numerous members of our team on how to engage with our customers and respond to their inquiries about our service.  Julia models the right way to interact with customers – she approaches each customer contact with a listening ear, commitment to truth, patience to educate, and timely responses. 

Julia has been a linchpin in developing CleanPowerSF’s customer service and engagement, working closely with our consultant to design call center protocols for CleanPowerSF enrollment periods and training new call center staff.  Julia served as our lead for coordinating the integration of call center services provided by our call center consultant, as the responsibility for picking up the phones for CleanPowerSF customer calls shifted from consultant employees located in San Diego to a new, local staff.  In this role, she successfully coordinated with key stakeholders in SFPUC’s Customer Services Bureau, our consultant and the consultant’s LBE subcontractor, to successfully onboard, train, and provide oversight to 4 new customer service representatives that started in July 2018.  

These CSRs started at a challenging time – in the middle of our major CleanPowerSF commercial customer enrollment.  Julia successfully balanced the need to coordinate onboarding of these new contract staff with her own key account management work.  By August, these new CSRs were answering calls and most call center activity had moved from Calpine’s headquarters in San Diego, to the SFPUC’s offices in San Francisco, fulfilling one of the SFPUC’s goals to have in-city call center representatives.

Julia also supported the onboarding of CleanPowerSF’s call center Supervisor, the first City employee to be hired to work on the CleanPowerSF call center. Julia stays in close touch with the CSB team to understand how the contractor is performing and coordinates additional training, as needed.  She has personally conducted trainings for agents on core CleanPowerSF concepts, Billing/Rates, and net energy metering, (a program that compensates customers that own solar panels for the electricity they deliver to the grid, a program that she was critical in designing and implementing).

Julia provided critical key accounts management support to CleanPowerSF large commercial customers through our commercial customer enrollment period starting in July 2018.  Julia responded to commercial customer questions about the enrollment process, calculated cost comparison, and successfully promoted SuperGreen upgrades. 

Julia is a confident and articulate representative for the CleanPowerSF program.  She contributed to the community outreach effort supporting our enrollment activities in FY 2018-19, delivering five “roadshow” presentations to community groups. Julia has also represented CleanPowerSF in other venues, including consumer and industry groups like the Business Council on Climate Change (BC3), CalCCA Billing and Customer Care meetings, PG&E meetings/trainings, and California Community Choice Aggregation Association Programs meetings.

In response to commercial customer interest, Julia developed the multi-year SuperGreen Service Agreement to support the eligibility of SuperGreen service for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) points, under newer standards.  Julia drafted the agreement terms and conditions with the City Attorney’s Office and presented it to the Commission for approval, which was obtained. Since the agreement was approved for use by the Commission, Julia has secured participation from three large commercial customers.

  Julia regularly demonstrates a keen awareness of building strong relationships, whether that is with the coworkers on her team, other teams in the Department, and externally.  Julia is a respectful, open and honest communicator and has demonstrated an ability to effectively collaborate within her team and across the organization.  She works closely with her supervisor to build capacity on the CleanPowerSF team by delegating work related to her projects to transfer knowledge and skills and to enable her to contribute to new initiatives and bigger picture issues.  Julia recognizes the important role of diversity and equity in the successful delivery of our services and actively works to promote these values within our team and through the services we provide to our community.

For the reasons above, I provide my nomination of Julia Allman to be a recipient of this year’s Impact Awards for in the categories of Organizational Excellence and Stakeholder and Community Interest.