Kurt Conger Closes Out a 14-Year Career at Northern Wasco County PUD
By Karen Heim
For 14 years, Kurt Conger watched the Columbia River from his office window at Northern Wasco County PUD. He saw it in every season, from peaceful mornings to driving snow to blistering summer heat.
Through all of it, the same quiet thought kept him company: “Just looking out the window, knowing that the juice is flowing from the river to the homes and offices here,” he says.
An eagle used to perch in the tree outside that window, and Kurt, who retired at the end of July as assistant general manager, came to see it as more than a good view.
“Just as the eagle represents freedom, strength, courage, and independent spirit, our utility aligns with these attributes as we work daily to provide low-cost electric service to our community,” he says.
His entire career was about carrying power to those who need it, and it started a long way from the Columbia River.
In the spring of 1982, as he wrapped up engineering school, Kurt wanted to see a different culture and put his skills to work in rural energy. A Peace Corps flyer offered a spot with the Fiji Ministry of Energy.
“Sounded like a good fit to me,” he says. He spent 3 years on microhydro projects, solar systems, and smokeless stoves for boarding schools, island-hopping across a nation of more than 300 patches of land in the vast Pacific Ocean.
Fiji set the pattern. Back home, Kurt moved through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and then to the American Public Power Association in Washington, D.C., where his real allegiance took shape.
“Public power is an underdog in the industry, and I wanted to contribute to the prosperity of consumer-owned utilities,” he says.
A consulting practice and a stint at Seattle City Light followed, but over time Kurt felt the pull back toward hands-on engineering. That is what brought him to The Dalles.
A colleague from his grid-coordinating days, Dwight Langer, was NWCPUD’s general manager, and he needed someone to help the district through a major change in how it bought power.
The timing was right. Kurt’s son was finishing college, and a key benefit awaited.
“My commute time would drop from 60 minutes each way on a bus, often in the rain, to 10 minutes in my own electric vehicle,” Kurt says.
In 2011, Kurt and his wife, Robyn, came to town over Thanksgiving and caught the Starlight Parade. That sealed it. They moved to The Dalles in February 2012.
What Kurt found was a community with a strong bond to its utility, the same closeness he had felt in the small towns and villages of his earlier work.
“It is important to know that you can make a difference in your community, whether it is a big city or a small town,” he says. “On rare occasions when the power goes out, friends and neighbors call me and ask what is happening. It feels good to have an answer.”
Kurt started at the PUD as director of power resources, brought on to move the utility onto a new power and transmission contract. As the work grew, so did his duties, from power contracts to load forecasting to the infrastructure for new customers. In time, he became assistant general manager.
After a career inside what engineers call the largest machine in the world— a grid interconnected from British Columbia to Mexico—Kurt still lights up at the physical fact of it.
“Every time at a power plant, being present for startup, synchronization, and closing the breaker, you can feel the power flow,” he says. “Energizing lines, especially new lines to customers, you hear the corona sizzle as the contacts come together.”
What Kurt is proudest of is quieter. Electricity sales have grown fourfold during his years at the PUD, and the district has grown up alongside them. He remembers when the utility’s staff was a third of today’s size, everyone wearing several hats. There is more depth now, he says, and room to take on bigger work.
Kurt would rather talk about his teammates than himself, confident they will “rise to the challenges,” he says.
Kurt’s mark on the community reaches well past the substation. He served on the School Bond Committee. He joined the crew that lights up the stars around town every year from Thanksgiving to Christmas, sometimes called the Fun Group, sometimes the Star Group.
True to form, Kurt engineered improvements, including smaller, more efficient generators and LED strips on the stars. He also recently helped find spots for new stars across The Dalles. The next time those stars come on over the holidays, know that an engineer who found his way here by way of Fiji had a hand in keeping them lit.
Kurt and Robyn have settled in California, closer to family. There are projects to help with, a granddaughter and grandson to watch grow up and maybe nudge toward engineering, and Sunday dinners they hope to make a standing tradition. There is skiing to teach the grandchildren, travel they have put off, and a little unfinished business.
I windsurfed in Fiji, but my skills got rusty,” Kurt says. He does not call it retirement, though. Robyn provided a better word for this stage of life.
“Robyn encourages me to think of this next chapter as rewirement rather than retirement,” Kurt says. “Looking at opportunities in a new way. Not part of slowing down, but rather redirecting my time toward a new flow of energy.”
Asked how he would want folks around town to remember him, Kurt keeps it modest and gets the last laugh in.
“‘He wasn’t from around here, but he quietly did a lot for the community,’” he says. “And everyone knows Robyn.” From everyone at Northern Wasco County PUD: Thank you, Kurt, and enjoy the rewirement. The lights are on, the stars are up, and the juice is still flowing.