April 18, 2023 • 11 mins
Tod Director of Field Operations and George VP of Field Operations stopped by the studio to talk to Host BeeJay and Co-Host Stacey Goodman, about the company's Day of Good. They allow employees to take a paid day off to dedicate to community serivce via organization of employeees choice.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Heart feet Saint Louis with a KA FIG Holiday, bringing you the pulse
of the city. Hey, what'sup? Listen boyd BJJ A K A
b J Holiday. And today onthe show, I'm gonna talk to my
good friends over Inspire. And forthose of you that still don't know who
(00:23):
Spire is. When you get thatorange envelope in the mill and you wonder
where why do I have a aspire gas bill, ladies and gentlemen.
He used to be known as Lacligue. Okay, So for those of you
that's been a while, a goodwhile, it used to be Lacligue.
So now it is Spied. Okay, y'all got that? Okay? Good?
(00:47):
Now on the show, I gotmy good friend Todd and George.
So Todd, yes, sir,uh tell everybody what you do Expire.
Yeah. So I'm the director ofField Operations ASPIRE for Eastern Missouri. All
right, Field director for Eastern Missouri. George, Yes, I'm the VPN
general manager for Missouri East Utility herein Saint Louis. Okay, now break
(01:11):
that down. What does that mean? So you know what I mean?
One time I break that down forhim, because I'm a little lost here.
I'm kind of going, Okay,he's over field operation, he's over
there. I'm a little confused.When do they do in your department?
Yeah, if you think about it, all the construction that happens, all
the new services, all the newmains that we're putting in, all the
new infrastructure, you're metering. Uh, you know, the inspections that we
(01:32):
have to do to make sure everythingis safe in the community. So we
do all that stuff. We doappliance repairs, we turn the gas on,
we do homesale inspections, so prettymuch anything that happens outside or inside
of a home, that's what wetake care of. And field operations.
Okay, So you you the guythat I need to just watch coming to
my house when you come out toput the meeting in. Yes, sir,
(01:53):
because you the guy to make makesure my bill is right. I
don't want it to be right.I want the wrong deal. Man.
I Joy. What about your department? Yeah, Actually, Todds in my
group and I also have a pipelinemanagement team, So we had a lot
of old pipes in the system andwe've had a big replacement program going on.
(02:16):
You've probably seen us in the city. We had a lot of old
cast iron pipe that that we're changingout and putting a newer lot, safer
plastic. So I have Todd's group. In addition, I have that pipeline
group. So it's it's about thousandfield employees here in Saint Louis that make
up our field Operations team. Okay. And then the other thing. Spire
(02:37):
does this thing with your employees.Will you guys do a day for good,
a good day? Yes, sir, they are good. They are
good. Okay, I knew itwas one of those, But talk to
me about the day of Good becausepeople need to know that Spire does a
lot in our community. Yes,and you know, and you guys when
(02:58):
you when you bring volunteer, youguys bringing volunteers, I mean, and
I can speak on I win AriseKids event. I think you guys had
like about sixty almost sixty volunteers therethat day that stayed all day, that
helped us out, actually made thekids and their families feel like superstars when
(03:19):
they came in because somebody was thereto greet them, take them over to
the coach, helped them get fittedfor coach and that type of thing.
So we want to take this opportunityto say thank you guys once again for
expending that Saturday with us for ourWin Arise Kids event. So let's talk
about the Day of Good. Yeah. So the Day of Good is an
opportunity for every one of our employeesto get eight hours to give back to
(03:43):
an organization that means something special tothem. Okay, and during that time
when they do that, let's talkabout some of the things that you guys
have done. We know, winArise Kids is one. Yeah, Win
a Rise Kids is a big oneand a matter of fact, BJ you
know, we we're so passionate aboutthis. It's actually in our mission statement
(04:06):
to advance every community and we dothat in several different ways. We do
it through infrastructure and some of thestuff that we talked about that new technology.
But we feel like we're a partof the community and we want to
make sure that we're giving back.So this Day of Good given eight hours
to every employee to go out anddo what they're passionate about. And if
there isn't something that they're strictly passionateabout, we give them opportunities. So,
(04:29):
you know, we have a thousandemployees in our group, and a
lot of this was spread out towardstwo days or two months in prior years,
but we have such an overwhelming responseto wanting to do this that we
had to build our own group andstarted doing this throughout the entire year because
we had so many people that wantedto get involved in it. So we've
done things. We've partnered with Jenning'sSchool district and we're doing something elementary,
(04:53):
junior, high and high school.We're doing a program that's called Spire Healthy
Future Program and basically what we're tryingto do is we're building a kitchen that
allows the kids to come in andlearn how to cook meals, bring in
some local chefs in so that theycan work with them and really learn.
But also on top of that ishow do we get our food? So
(05:14):
we've built garden boxes for them sothat they can grow food. We've got
greenhouses that we've built and they're goingto utilize that. And you know,
this year we do a lot ofthings for individual folks, but we want
to we were really looking to makea bigger impact in one area, so
we really picked a Jennings school thisyear and can we give back now with
this program but we also do mentoringmentoring programs with some of our employees,
(05:38):
and we're going to start one ofthose with Jennings. We do want at
Seagull Elementary right now. That's verysuccessful and a lot of the principles in
the area have really kind of contactedus, our buddy Rex, I know,
you know Rex. Yeah, Sothey're calling Rex all the time asking
us to come in and mentor theirstudents as well. So this is that's
a really big project that we're goinginto this year. A couple other things
(05:59):
that we're pretty excited about. UnlimitedPlay was basically an organization that builds playgrounds
that everyone has access to, soany chilled gern child that has a physical
disability. The whole design is sothat it's a universal playground that everybody can
be a part of. So whatwe're gonna do there is we're gonna go
(06:21):
in, We're gonna go down,and we're gonna grade the lot, make
sure everything's flat, all the rockthat needs to be put in, all
those type of things with the landwe're gonna take care of. We're gonna
help them put everything together, installit so all the kids can join in.
I'm pretty passionate about that one.Everybody's really excited about helping in and
we're gonna that's something that we wantto kind of dig in. And we're
(06:43):
kind of late to the game thisyear with them, but next year we're
gonna we're gonna try to get inright at the very beginning and do some
stuff with them as well. So, man, it would it sounds like
you guys are actually right on timewith the amazing things that you guys are
doing. You know, when youtalk about building the kitchen, you know,
and then of God and then youknow, you know what, this
works out perfect, right, Soyou guys got it all under control.
(07:06):
So we're gonna help you, um, you know, uh, grow the
food, to get the food.Then we're gonna help you have a place
to where you can eat the food. And then there's gonna be a playground
where you can burn off all thesethings. Circle perfect. That's that's helping,
(07:27):
that's helping the parents out. Imean when you think that, I
don't think I was the only one. I kind of thought it. I
think everybody thought about it, buty'all just didn't see it. But that
is amazing. Now I do knowthat you guys are doing something with the
Museum of Transportation. Is that correct, George, I think, yeah,
(07:50):
thanks about to do with that.Yeah, that's one that I've been pretty
passionate about. I got the opportunityto join the board there January of last
year. And I don't know ifyou're familiar with the museum. It's it's
down in Kirkwood off a Doherty Ferry. Yeah, and uh Barrett Station Road,
and awesome facility. It's it's fortyacres, it's it's it's kind of
(08:11):
tucked away that a lot of peopledon't necessarily know that it's there, but
it's one of the biggest and nicesttransportation museums in the country. And uh,
Like I said, I got theopportunity to join the board there,
and it was at a unique timebecause they had actually been a part of
the Saint Louis Parks Department Saint LouisCounty and they split away for economic reasons
(08:33):
to just to standalone U five Oone C entity, and I came on
just as that happens. So theylost all the county resources that they had,
and they had a lot of projectsthat they wanted to get done.
So we came in and they hada deck that deteriorated. We tore that
all part and put a new oneon and that's kind of the whole center
(08:54):
of the museum now now that allthat's done. They had another ramp that
that led up to a train carthat they used to teach kids about transportation,
and they could no longer use thatcar because they couldn't get access to
it, so we rebuilt it.They had a hill that we landscape for
them. So it's just a greatopportunity. The other piece that kind of
(09:16):
ties in is Aspire does a lotof charitable giving on top of allowing the
employees to do today for good,So they were able to file for a
grant that our charitable trust was ableto give them money to help pay for
the cost of some of these improvementsthat we made as well. So just
just a neat deal and something thatI've really been passionate about. Wow.
(09:37):
Wow, Like I said, inspired, there's so many great things in our
community that people don't know about.And uh, you know, in addition
to providing the best you know heat, you know, the gas for the
heat in the country, you know, I just think we're the best you
know I don't know about anybody else, but I just think we're the best
because when I go to other cities, you know, you go into house,
(10:00):
the house cool, and I don'tbe getting there. Honest. You
know, I go into house inMissouri and you know, the heat is
great. You know what I mean. I'm just I just wanted out there.
But anyway, I wanted to taketime to bring you guys in to
kind of discuss some of the thingsthat you do. If people want to
get more information about anything that youguys are doing, is there a central
(10:26):
location like a website, it's somethingthat people can go to. Yeah,
you can certainly go to our website, and after you get into spire Energy
dot com, you just look forspire serves and it'll give a lot of
information about what we've done in thepast and some of the things that we're
looking up to and if if you'reinterested in us come in and help you
out. You can also have anemail address it's just Serving Communities at spire
(10:48):
Energy dot com and you can geton there and put in a request for
us to come help your organization out. More than happy to do so.
Well, gentlemen, Thank you guysfor taking out time today to come in
and talk with me. And onceagain, we'll appreciate everything you get,
guys do, and I look forwardto seeing you guys in December. We
want to rise these kids. Ilook forward to it. We'll be there
all right. Thank you all Heartfeat. Saint Louis with BJ the TJ
(11:13):
a k A Pig Holiday bringing youthe pulse of the city.
Heart feet Saint Louis with a KA FIG Holiday, bringing you the pulse
of the city. Hey, what'sup? Listen boyd BJJ A K A
b J Holiday. And today onthe show, I'm gonna talk to my
good friends over Inspire. And forthose of you that still don't know who
(00:23):
Spire is. When you get thatorange envelope in the mill and you wonder
where why do I have a aspire gas bill, ladies and gentlemen.
He used to be known as Lacligue. Okay, So for those of you
that's been a while, a goodwhile, it used to be Lacligue.
So now it is Spied. Okay, y'all got that? Okay? Good?
(00:47):
Now on the show, I gotmy good friend Todd and George.
So Todd, yes, sir,uh tell everybody what you do Expire.
Yeah. So I'm the director ofField Operations ASPIRE for Eastern Missouri. All
right, Field director for Eastern Missouri. George, Yes, I'm the VPN
general manager for Missouri East Utility herein Saint Louis. Okay, now break
(01:11):
that down. What does that mean? So you know what I mean?
One time I break that down forhim, because I'm a little lost here.
I'm kind of going, Okay,he's over field operation, he's over
there. I'm a little confused.When do they do in your department?
Yeah, if you think about it, all the construction that happens, all
the new services, all the newmains that we're putting in, all the
new infrastructure, you're metering. Uh, you know, the inspections that we
(01:32):
have to do to make sure everythingis safe in the community. So we
do all that stuff. We doappliance repairs, we turn the gas on,
we do homesale inspections, so prettymuch anything that happens outside or inside
of a home, that's what wetake care of. And field operations.
Okay, So you you the guythat I need to just watch coming to
my house when you come out toput the meeting in. Yes, sir,
(01:53):
because you the guy to make makesure my bill is right. I
don't want it to be right.I want the wrong deal. Man.
I Joy. What about your department? Yeah, Actually, Todds in my
group and I also have a pipelinemanagement team, So we had a lot
of old pipes in the system andwe've had a big replacement program going on.
(02:16):
You've probably seen us in the city. We had a lot of old
cast iron pipe that that we're changingout and putting a newer lot, safer
plastic. So I have Todd's group. In addition, I have that pipeline
group. So it's it's about thousandfield employees here in Saint Louis that make
up our field Operations team. Okay. And then the other thing. Spire
(02:37):
does this thing with your employees.Will you guys do a day for good,
a good day? Yes, sir, they are good. They are
good. Okay, I knew itwas one of those, But talk to
me about the day of Good becausepeople need to know that Spire does a
lot in our community. Yes,and you know, and you guys when
(02:58):
you when you bring volunteer, youguys bringing volunteers, I mean, and
I can speak on I win AriseKids event. I think you guys had
like about sixty almost sixty volunteers therethat day that stayed all day, that
helped us out, actually made thekids and their families feel like superstars when
(03:19):
they came in because somebody was thereto greet them, take them over to
the coach, helped them get fittedfor coach and that type of thing.
So we want to take this opportunityto say thank you guys once again for
expending that Saturday with us for ourWin Arise Kids event. So let's talk
about the Day of Good. Yeah. So the Day of Good is an
opportunity for every one of our employeesto get eight hours to give back to
(03:43):
an organization that means something special tothem. Okay, and during that time
when they do that, let's talkabout some of the things that you guys
have done. We know, winArise Kids is one. Yeah, Win
a Rise Kids is a big oneand a matter of fact, BJ you
know, we we're so passionate aboutthis. It's actually in our mission statement
(04:06):
to advance every community and we dothat in several different ways. We do
it through infrastructure and some of thestuff that we talked about that new technology.
But we feel like we're a partof the community and we want to
make sure that we're giving back.So this Day of Good given eight hours
to every employee to go out anddo what they're passionate about. And if
there isn't something that they're strictly passionateabout, we give them opportunities. So,
(04:29):
you know, we have a thousandemployees in our group, and a
lot of this was spread out towardstwo days or two months in prior years,
but we have such an overwhelming responseto wanting to do this that we
had to build our own group andstarted doing this throughout the entire year because
we had so many people that wantedto get involved in it. So we've
done things. We've partnered with Jenning'sSchool district and we're doing something elementary,
(04:53):
junior, high and high school.We're doing a program that's called Spire Healthy
Future Program and basically what we're tryingto do is we're building a kitchen that
allows the kids to come in andlearn how to cook meals, bring in
some local chefs in so that theycan work with them and really learn.
But also on top of that ishow do we get our food? So
(05:14):
we've built garden boxes for them sothat they can grow food. We've got
greenhouses that we've built and they're goingto utilize that. And you know,
this year we do a lot ofthings for individual folks, but we want
to we were really looking to makea bigger impact in one area, so
we really picked a Jennings school thisyear and can we give back now with
this program but we also do mentoringmentoring programs with some of our employees,
(05:38):
and we're going to start one ofthose with Jennings. We do want at
Seagull Elementary right now. That's verysuccessful and a lot of the principles in
the area have really kind of contactedus, our buddy Rex, I know,
you know Rex. Yeah, Sothey're calling Rex all the time asking
us to come in and mentor theirstudents as well. So this is that's
a really big project that we're goinginto this year. A couple other things
(05:59):
that we're pretty excited about. UnlimitedPlay was basically an organization that builds playgrounds
that everyone has access to, soany chilled gern child that has a physical
disability. The whole design is sothat it's a universal playground that everybody can
be a part of. So whatwe're gonna do there is we're gonna go
(06:21):
in, We're gonna go down,and we're gonna grade the lot, make
sure everything's flat, all the rockthat needs to be put in, all
those type of things with the landwe're gonna take care of. We're gonna
help them put everything together, installit so all the kids can join in.
I'm pretty passionate about that one.Everybody's really excited about helping in and
we're gonna that's something that we wantto kind of dig in. And we're
(06:43):
kind of late to the game thisyear with them, but next year we're
gonna we're gonna try to get inright at the very beginning and do some
stuff with them as well. So, man, it would it sounds like
you guys are actually right on timewith the amazing things that you guys are
doing. You know, when youtalk about building the kitchen, you know,
and then of God and then youknow, you know what, this
works out perfect, right, Soyou guys got it all under control.
(07:06):
So we're gonna help you, um, you know, uh, grow the
food, to get the food.Then we're gonna help you have a place
to where you can eat the food. And then there's gonna be a playground
where you can burn off all thesethings. Circle perfect. That's that's helping,
(07:27):
that's helping the parents out. Imean when you think that, I
don't think I was the only one. I kind of thought it. I
think everybody thought about it, buty'all just didn't see it. But that
is amazing. Now I do knowthat you guys are doing something with the
Museum of Transportation. Is that correct, George, I think, yeah,
(07:50):
thanks about to do with that.Yeah, that's one that I've been pretty
passionate about. I got the opportunityto join the board there January of last
year. And I don't know ifyou're familiar with the museum. It's it's
down in Kirkwood off a Doherty Ferry. Yeah, and uh Barrett Station Road,
and awesome facility. It's it's fortyacres, it's it's it's kind of
(08:11):
tucked away that a lot of peopledon't necessarily know that it's there, but
it's one of the biggest and nicesttransportation museums in the country. And uh,
Like I said, I got theopportunity to join the board there,
and it was at a unique timebecause they had actually been a part of
the Saint Louis Parks Department Saint LouisCounty and they split away for economic reasons
(08:33):
to just to standalone U five Oone C entity, and I came on
just as that happens. So theylost all the county resources that they had,
and they had a lot of projectsthat they wanted to get done.
So we came in and they hada deck that deteriorated. We tore that
all part and put a new oneon and that's kind of the whole center
(08:54):
of the museum now now that allthat's done. They had another ramp that
that led up to a train carthat they used to teach kids about transportation,
and they could no longer use thatcar because they couldn't get access to
it, so we rebuilt it.They had a hill that we landscape for
them. So it's just a greatopportunity. The other piece that kind of
(09:16):
ties in is Aspire does a lotof charitable giving on top of allowing the
employees to do today for good,So they were able to file for a
grant that our charitable trust was ableto give them money to help pay for
the cost of some of these improvementsthat we made as well. So just
just a neat deal and something thatI've really been passionate about. Wow.
(09:37):
Wow, Like I said, inspired, there's so many great things in our
community that people don't know about.And uh, you know, in addition
to providing the best you know heat, you know, the gas for the
heat in the country, you know, I just think we're the best you
know I don't know about anybody else, but I just think we're the best
because when I go to other cities, you know, you go into house,
(10:00):
the house cool, and I don'tbe getting there. Honest. You
know, I go into house inMissouri and you know, the heat is
great. You know what I mean. I'm just I just wanted out there.
But anyway, I wanted to taketime to bring you guys in to
kind of discuss some of the thingsthat you do. If people want to
get more information about anything that youguys are doing, is there a central
(10:26):
location like a website, it's somethingthat people can go to. Yeah,
you can certainly go to our website, and after you get into spire Energy
dot com, you just look forspire serves and it'll give a lot of
information about what we've done in thepast and some of the things that we're
looking up to and if if you'reinterested in us come in and help you
out. You can also have anemail address it's just Serving Communities at spire
(10:48):
Energy dot com and you can geton there and put in a request for
us to come help your organization out. More than happy to do so.
Well, gentlemen, Thank you guysfor taking out time today to come in
and talk with me. And onceagain, we'll appreciate everything you get,
guys do, and I look forwardto seeing you guys in December. We
want to rise these kids. Ilook forward to it. We'll be there
all right. Thank you all Heartfeat. Saint Louis with BJ the TJ
(11:13):
a k A Pig Holiday bringing youthe pulse of the city.
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