LA Council Confirms LADWP General Manager

LOS ANGELES — On Feb. 21, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously confirmed Anaheim City Manager Marcie Edwards as the new general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Edwards is the first woman in that role.

Edwards ran Anaheim Public Utilities for 13 years prior to her appointment as city manager in 2013. She previously worked for the LADWP for 24 years in several positions.

Edwards began working at the LADWP in August 1976 at the age of 19 as a clerk typist. She later became a steam plant assistant, a plant equipment operator, a steam plant operator, a load dispatcher and a senior load dispatcher. She even became an LADWP superintendent of load dispatching, energy control center manager and a manager of bulk power operations and maintenance, as well as a bulk power business unit director.

From 1998 to 2000, she served as assistant general manager for the marketing and customer service business units.

She left the LADWP in December 2000 to serve as general manager of Anaheim’s municipal water and electric utility.

As past governor on the California Independent System Operator Board, Edward served as interim CEO of that agency in 2004. Edwards has a bachelor’s degree in organizational management and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of La Verne.

As the LADWP general manager, she will oversee the utility with an operating budget of $5.5 billion, 8,800 employees and water and power to almost 4 million Los Angeles residents.

Improving customer service, resolving billing issues related to the conversion of LADWP’s customer service information system, overseeing LADWP’s transition to clean energy through further development of renewable energy and local solar expansion, increased energy efficiency, water conservation and developing more local water resources to combat climate change and drought are among Edwards’s top priorities.