Plugged into the future: The new EA boss powering Mid Canterbury

8/11/2024

The new boss of EA Networks brings decades of infrastructure expertise to help power up Mid Canterbury’s lights and internet. After six months in the hot seat. Onno Mulder spoke to Local Democracy Reporter Jonathan Leask about the challenges, future plans, and what he does for fun.

Onno Mulder is a man of infrastructure.

His background is in maintenance and construction, and after six months as the chief executive of EA Networks, he now has a grounding in electricity.

“I’ve got my feet well under the table now.

“My background is construction - in water, wastewater, roading, all the other civil services, so I’m new to electricity.

“I’ve been learning the electricity industry as well as learning EA.

“It took three months to understand the business, who we are as an organisation, and how we operate.”

EA Networks owns and operates the region's electricity distribution network and an advanced fibre optic communications network, and the Ashburton District Council is the majority shareholder (95%).

The council appoints three members and the community appoints four members to the shareholders committee, which appoints the board.

The board selects the chief executive.

With 35 years of experience in the infrastructure sector, Mulder knows the responsibility of being in charge of keeping the district switched on.

“As a leader at EA networks, I’m mindful we are the guardians of a network that will be here well past my tenure and has been here 100 years already.

“Everything we do needs to be enabling the region.

“If we don’t function well as an organisation we impact on people's businesses and lives.

“It’s a major responsibility and one we take very seriously.

“It’s a big job and we have a team of skilled, dedicated people that work really hard to keep the power on.”

Born in the Netherlands, Mulder immigrated at a young age with his family in the 1970s and grew up in Hawkes Bay.

With a Master of Engineering in Construction Management he ended up going into roading.

“I went all over the country as a project manager and was then a regional branch manager for a subsidiary of BP Oil.

“That’s why I got my grounding in project management, management, and safety.”

He moved to Christchurch to work for City Care in 2000 and five years later became the chief executive.

At that stage it was a business with a $50m turnover, he said.

After 15 years at the helm, he departed in 2020 when it was turning over $350m.

“It grew from being a Christchurch-based organisation to being national.”

It was a council-controlled organisation, owned by Christchurch City Holdings, focused on water, wastewater, roading, parks, emergency response, and facilities management, he said.

“All the services that keep communities working.”

He left to become the chief executive of the Southland Institute of Technology which happened to coincide with the Te Pukenga reforms of the tertiary education sector.

“It was a tough year because of the reforms and all the changes.

“I believe in vocational training as it’s a critical part of the infrastructure build and maintenance sector, so I really wanted to make a difference.

“Because of the reform, it was really hard to make the changes that I wanted to achieve.”

After 10 months in the role, he resigned and went from the deep south to the far north, Northpower in Whangarei.

The opportunity to join the power sector was “a logical choice” as he returned to what he knows, infrastructure.

He commuted to Auckland to be the chief operating officer of Northpower Contracting.

When the EA Networks role came up it was an opportunity to come back to Canterbury to work for an “incredibly well-respected organisation”.

“It has invested heavily in building a robust and resilient network.

“It plays a big part in the Mid Canterbury economy and infrastructure here.”

He became the new head of EA Networks in March, taking over from Roger Sutton who had held the role for four years.

Sutton had previously been the first chief executive of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera) in 2011.

Like his predecessor, Mulder was heavily involved in the Christchurch earthquake recovery.

If you hadn’t guessed by now, it was with the infrastructure.

In his role leading City Care, Mulder had a big involvement in the first few years with the emergency response to restore and repair services.

He also took on the role of leading the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (SCIRT).

It was an alliance between five contractors and three crown entities, including CERA, to oversee the $2.5 billion rebuild of all the horizontal infrastructure, with Mulder at the helm as chairperson for five years.

His role at EA Networks is keeping the lights on in Mid Canterbury and keeping the district connected through the fibre network.

If he doesn’t do his job, it impacts thousands of others from doing their roles.

“Since I’ve got here we have been working on where is the organisation going and we landed on our purpose being to enable Mid Canterbury.”

Enabling industry to decarbonise, grow, or set up here, or the liveability, he said.

“Everything we do is about providing a reliable, resilient service to keep people with electricity, and fibre as well.”

Mulder has enjoyed building a relationship with the council, and it’s one that could be a lot closer in the future.

Under the Government’s Local Water Done Well legislation, the council has to prepare a Water Services Delivery Plan and decide on a service delivery model.

It’s considering three options: the status quo with commerce commission oversight; establishing a new three waters council-controlled organisation; or transfer to an existing local Board-governed entity, such as with EA Networks.

Mulder, with his background in infrastructure, would relish the opportunity.

He said there is a lot of detail to be discussed around this option, but the concept makes sense.

EA has a strong track record in ownership, asset management, and delivery, he said.

The three waters structure is being changed to “almost mirror the electricity network” with a quality and price regulator, he said.

“There is a compelling reason for the option, but it's only one of the three and it’s up to the council to decide.”

For now, the focus remains on power and fibre.

“Up until now, we had a build capacity and resilience focus. We are now transitioning to maintaining capacity and still building resilience.”

Latest figures show the outages in the district are among the lowest in the country he said.

In the last year, there were only 60 minutes in total when the power was out in the district, and planned outages totalled 110 minutes.

A new addition is an outage map on the website, giving a real-time look at any outages, including planned outages. It will show who is impacted and an estimated repair time, he said.

“It’s a step forward in keeping the community informed.”

When he isn’t leading the way in infrastructure, he is planning his next getaway.

“My wife and I love to go away and spend time together seeing the world.”

Sometimes their two sons, both in their late 20s, are included in the travel plans.

It’s not surprising the man of infrastructure enjoys the intricacies of travel planning.

“Much of the fun of a holiday is the planning for me. Identifying where you want to go and the organising of it.”

His most recent trip took him back to the Netherlands, with Norway being one of his favourite destinations so far.

The next adventure will be relocating to Mid Canterbury, with Mulder and his wife on the property hunt.

It will give him an extra incentive to keep the lights on.

By Jonathan Leask (Ashburton Guardian)