Kathy Howard speaks with a lot of passion about her career. It’s clear she enjoys staying busy with a variety of projects, and as Business Development Specialist in the Business Development Office, that’s exactly what she gets to do.    

Kathy came to GUC in 2017 with 23 years of economic development experience, including time with the NC Dept. of Commerce and as Vice President for a regional economic development organization. “I love this work and most of all now, I love being able to focus on the Greenville and Pitt County community where my family lives,” she said.

Kathy came into a new role at GUC, serving as utility liaison for our Key Accounts Program and our economic development efforts. She works actively to partner with local and state agencies on business and community development. Most of her time is devoted to developing and maintaining favorable business relationships with commercial and industrial customers, potential new customers, developers, and key utility organizations.

Our larger customers, like commercial and industrial accounts, have a significant financial impact on our systems as well as special needs to ensure that their businesses operate at top capacity. These are our Key Accounts, and we have a Key Accounts Team of eight other employees from across GUC who support Kathy in these efforts of regular communications with these customers. Their support comes in a variety of ways, mainly as subject matter experts when a Key Account or potential new customer needs specific utility expertise. 

In 2020, Kathy became certified through APPA’s Key Accounts Certification program. “GUC has been really proactive for years in taking care of Key Accounts,” she said, “so it’s become a smooth process that I enjoy being a part of here.”

Kathy also partners with employees from across GUC on a variety of projects and ad hoc work requests for our existing commercial and industrial customers as well as recruiting new business. For example, the GDS Team assists Kathy with a lot of our economic development projects, and Billing helps her with Key Accounts. 

She also plays a big role during storms in communicating with Key Accounts. Kathy receives alerts if an outage may impact a Key Account, allowing her a chance to keep that customer informed of any potential concerns. “It’s a big deal and very costly for an industry if their power is out,” she said. “Communicating with them through an outage is essential.”

On the recruiting side of her job, Kathy is GUC’s liaison with the Greenville ENC Alliance (she played a role in getting this new Alliance up and running), NC Dept. of Commerce, Economic Development Partnership of NC, and other regional entities. One recent recruitment success that Kathy assisted with is World Cat Catamaran, which will invest $8,879,000 to expand its operations with a new production facility in Greenville. “Any time companies look to locate in an area, utilities fall in the top five categories they evaluate,” she said. “I am the first contact they make in gathering information about utilities.”

Companies ask Kathy questions about our service capacity, how we’ll serve them, how a site is prepared, and utility cost hypotheticals. “Most times, we don’t even know the name of a company until we become a finalist, so we have code names for these projects. We’re not the only area they are evaluating, so we have to be competitive and product-ready.”

When asked what Kathy enjoys the most in her career at GUC, she says it’s the fact that she gets to work with every level of the utility and so many different employees. “I always thought GUC was a top-notch utility, but now I know it. Everyone here has been so supportive to this new role. I also like doing community development work in the place I live and call home.”

While Kathy has lived in Greenville for 23 years, she grew up in neighboring Tarboro. She graduated from Meredith College and, after entering a career in economic development, also graduated from the University of Oklahoma’s Economic Development Institute. 

She and her husband, Rob, have two sons, Ives (16) and Suiter (13), along with three-year-old yellow Lab, Lilly. Kathy and her family enjoy traveling, but she says their best times are spent on a baseball field or basketball court. “My absolute favorite thing to do is to watch them do what they love,” she said. “I am hopeful for a full baseball season this year!” 

Kathy also enjoys representing GUC on a variety of committees and groups in the community, including Uptown Greenville Board of Directors, Greenville-Pitt County Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors, Greenville Sports Commission’s Little League Softball World Series Planning Committee, and various other community development actives. She’s also a member of the NC Economic Developers Association, Board of Directors of Greenville Little League, Rose High’s Academic Boosters, and is an Elder at First Presbyterian Church.

It’s evident that Kathy enjoys building relationships and staying active in the community. This, along with her passion for community development, helped her successfully jump into this new role at GUC over the past three years.

Favorites

Sports Team: ECU
Favorite Restaurant: A'Tavola
Favorite Vacation: California Coastal Tour
Favorite Movie: Remember The Titans