An open letter to the people of the Commonwealth

As I look back on 2015 I realize that this past year has been the most challenging in my 30-year career. There have been the many infrastructure improvement projects and the new developments, the challenges of finding and stopping leaks in an aging water system, and the limited funding available for improvements. Then, in July 2015, Alan Fletcher vacated the executive director position and the board appointed me as the acting executive director. I worked with a larger group of individuals both within and external to CUC. Everyone was fantastic. I am grateful to the board for having confidence in me to do the job.

In August, Typhoon Soudelor passed over us and left a giant mess. Thankfully injury to people was very low. Our homes and water and power infrastructure were not as fortunate—they were massively devastated. Why the typhoon came within a month of serving as acting executive director I will never know, but I am pleased that I was able to do my part to help the residents of Saipan in the aftermath of the typhoon. I was fortunate to have a great staff to work with through it all. I am grateful to the residents and businesses and governing agencies for their tremendous patience, fortitude, assistance, and support. We owe a great thanks to all the responders who came to our aid: our sister island utilities, federal officials, such as the Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA, CNMI legislators, Emergency Management Office, and the businesses that extended their appreciation to CUC many times in many ways. I thank you.

My appointment as acting executive director terminated on Dec. 13, 2015. During my time as acting executive director, I had the pleasure of meeting and interacting with all of CUC—the call center, FAM, power plant operators, T&D, human resources, warehouse staff, along with my regular interaction with procurement, accounting, IT, engineering, water and wastewater operations, administration, payroll, and legal counsel. It was a pleasure and an honor to work with everyone at CUC. Though CUC has its struggles and its challenges, I can attest that all the CUC employees with whom I have worked with are professional, dedicated to their jobs, committed to the mission of CUC, and they genuinely care about providing good service to CUC customers. This was especially apparent in the days and months following Soudelor. Every CUC employee rose to the immense task of restoring water, power, and wastewater services. CUC employees did not tire in the goal to restore services as quickly as possible. Despite the hot sun beating down on the linemen; despite the dirty, hot, and noisy working conditions at the power plant; despite trudging through the treacherous jungle looking for water line breaks; despite the difficulty of operating many lift stations with a portable generator; despite the hundreds of requisitions to buy materials and services; despite functioning with sparse funds; despite the handling of thousands of calls; despite the increased load of accounting huge numbers of expenditures and shipments; despite the logistics of coordinating the arrival, lodging, and return of dozens of visiting utility workers to assist CUC; despite the orchestration of the delivery of unprecedented purchases of power poles, transformers, and trucks; despite the long, long days of what first seemed like endless recovery, your CUC workers shined. Your CUC workers did not fade; they did not complain, they did not stop until the systems were repaired, functional, and dependable again. This they did for the good of the community, this they did for the residents of Saipan. CUC employees did their jobs with pride, honor, and expertise. It is true that there are still problem areas and CUC still has more restoration to do, and the water system continues to experience upsets and interruptions in providing water, but the utility faces a long list of deficiencies due to the age of the majority of the infrastructure.

Without the help of all the federal agencies, without the support of all the responders, our recovery task would have been monumental and would have taken years to complete. CUC and the residents of Saipan surely acknowledge the significant contributions by the federal government and all the neighboring island utilities. We owe great thanks to them. Moving forward, with the financial aid of FEMA and EPA and other funding agencies, CUC is able to design and construct new facilities piece by piece to make the water system, sewer system, power distribution system, and the power plant, better. I thank the lieutenant governor and all the local legislators for their support during my time as acting executive director.

We have all weathered a terrible and intense storm together, and dug out from the ravages of the storm as a community with distinction. I am incredibly proud of all CUC employees and am honored to have served as acting executive director through it all. Never have I seen such dedication and hard work for such an extended length of time as I have witnessed in each and every CUC employee throughout the recovery and restoration.

I want to express my appreciation and thanks to the businesses and residents of Saipan for your support, for your patience (I know it was not easy to be without power and water), for your understanding, and for your supreme resiliency. I thank the members of the press and my PIO for disseminating information throughout the year. Even though I am no longer the acting executive director of CUC, I will always remember my experiences in that role. I will continue to be your CUC chief engineer and serve the community of Saipan in that capacity.

Thank you again, Saipan. I wish you all a joyous Christmas season, and I hope for a prosperous year ahead, free of typhoons, if possible!

John Riegel, Special to the Saipan Tribune
John Riegel is chief engineer of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. and is a former acting executive director of the utilities agency.