A non-profit agency of the City of Chattanooga, EPB was established in 1935 for the sole purpose of providing electric power to the people of the greater Chattanooga area. Today, EPB is still one of the largest publicly-owned providers of electric power in the country, serving more than 168,000 residents in a 600 square-mile area that includes greater Chattanooga, as well as parts of surrounding counties (small parts of Bledsoe, Bradley, Marion, Rhea, and Sequatchie) and areas of North Georgia (portions of Catoosa, Dade, and Walker). EPB Electric sales revenue was $421 million in 2007.
EPB is headed by a five member
Board of Directors.
Today, EPB is both an electric utility and a communications company which consists of ten divisions. Harold DePriest is President and Chief Executive Officer. The executive staff includes: Greg Eaves, Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer; David Wade, Senior Vice President, Electric System; Diana Bullock, Vice President, Economic Development and Government Relations; Steve Clark, Vice President, Strategic Systems; Kathy Burns, Vice President, Customer Relations; Danna Bailey, Vice President, Corporate Communications; Jim Ingraham, Vice President, Strategic Research, Katie Espeseth, Vice President, EPB Fiber Optics; Pamper Garner Crangle, Vice President, Culture and Development and David Johnson, Vice President, Information Technology.
EPB's mission - to enhance the quality of life in our community - is a mission taken seriously. By 2009, EPB will have invested $1 million for the 21st Century Waterfront Development in addition to committing $125,000 to support the Chamber's economic development efforts. And EPB helps the community with more than 3,000 volunteer hours each year in over 150 charitable organizations. EPB employees are currently one of the largest contributors to the United Way organization. Last year alone, through the leadership of our Minority- & Women-Owned Business Development Department, EPB put nearly $2.6 million back into the local economy.
As part of our commitment to the community we serve, EPB takes seriously its ability to encourage conservation and efficient use of energy. That’s why EPB provides comprehensive Energy Audits and energy savings recommendations for commercial and industrial customers as well as Home Energy Audits for residential customers. In 2007 alone, EPB provided 4,000 free Home Energy Savings Kits to customers through a community-wide series of Energy Savings Clinics that provided simple steps, strategies and ideas for reducing home energy usage. EPB is also proud to participate in TVA’s Green Power Switch, an environmentally beneficial electric power source. In the last six years, more than 1,000 residential customers and 28 business customers have joined EPB in making the switch by purchasing 2,598 blocks of Green Power - the equivalent of planting nearly 1,300 acres of trees in the Chattanooga area.
EPB launched our telecommunications division in April of 2000 to provide local businesses with a high quality, reliable, local solution at an affordable price. Since then, EPB Telecom has grown to serve 2,340 customers, with just over 20,000 lines in service. EPB Telecom revenue for 2007 was $13.7 million, an 11% increase from 2006. In addition to the acquisition of new customers, EPB Telecom's growth is also due in large part to the continued expansion of services to existing clients, including data services, from over 180 miles of fiber in the greater Chattanooga area.
EPB Telecom is the second largest local business phone provider with the second highest brand awareness (behind only AT&T). EPB Telecom enjoys high customer satisfaction ratings.
In November 2003, EPB Telecom launched a new all-fiber Internet solution for local businesses. This new product gives businesses affordable access to up to 500 Mbps of bandwidth - a capacity 300 times faster than a standard DSL, cable or T1 connection. This new product gives Chattanooga businesses Internet bandwidth capacity and service that meets or exceeds cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
In the fall of 2007, EPB’s Board of Directors and Chattanooga’s City Council approved EPB’s Fiber to the Home initiative, designed to help generate economic development, improve service to our electric power customers, and provide additional benefits like better access to healthcare and education. A Fiber to the Home infrastructure will provide for a dedicated fiber-optic broadband connection to every customer in EPB’s service area, allowing for massive amounts of data to be sent anywhere in the world at speeds exponentially faster than currently available technology.
