Quanta Services CEO Earl “Duke” Austin told delegates on Sept. 23 how humbling it was for him to stand in front of the 41st IBEW International Convention and see the many IBEW members who make things happen.
“It warms my heart, warms my soul,” said Austin, who noted that his family experience with Houston Local 66 goes back generations. “I watched my granddad get his 50-year pin when I was 9.”
He recalled another childhood scene: “My dad was just coming off a pole. He had creosote all over him, he’d hug me, put creosote on my face, and my mom would freak out,” said Austin, who has served as Quanta’s CEO since 2016.
The IBEW and Quanta are both growing, he said. “Fifteen years ago, we had roughly 6,000 IBEW employees. Today, it’s 40,000,” he said. “We’re partners. It’s the only way we can go where we want to go.”
Austin praised International President Kenneth W. Cooper and the IBEW’s other elected leaders for their commitment to making things better for members and for the industry.
“I work for you, the men and women in the field. I get to talk about the great things these trades do every day,” the CEO said. “I love my job, and Kenny loves his job. He works his ass off. That’s why we get along.”
Even when the IBEW and Quanta are on opposite sides of an issue, “we’re still trying to win,” Austin said. “It’s about making things better for you and making things better for our people.”
He believes the world is experiencing another Industrial Revolution.
“You think about where the railroads were built and the towns that were done,” Austin said. “My granddad built a line from Galveston, Texas, into Houston. Today, you will build facilities in West Texas where there is nothing there. People will have to build towns and cities around what we’re doing in electrification.”
Building a future like that requires journeyman electrical workers, he said.
“The only way you get a journeyman is to have a journeyman,” Austin said. “I’m seeing money get put in the markets, hundreds of millions of dollars, and all of a sudden craftsmen are going to appear? That’s not how it works.
“You are not a commodity,” he said. “You drive our business, and you drive the future of everyone’s business.”
Austin used Quanta’s $5 billion, 3.5-gigawatt Sun Zia wind generation and transmission project as one example.
“They were messing with it for 15 years. They had spent hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said. “There was a communication gap. People were talking past each other. I just said, ‘Hey, I know Cooper. Let me just call him,’” Austin said.
And so in 2023, the IBEW signed a project labor agreement with Quanta to build the $1.3 billion, 580-mile transmission line in New Mexico and Arizona in support of Sun Zia.
At its peak, Sun Zia — one of the largest-ever renewable energy projects in North America — is expected to create more than 2,000 construction jobs across the Southwest.
“We were able to work together and have that thing solved because we communicated,” Austin said.
Cooper noted that Austin’s remarks were unscripted. “He spoke from his heart. That’s the kind of person he really is,” the international president said. “I’m very proud to say that every time Duke gave me his word, he’s kept that word.”
