ESC GFEN NA Consortium Minutes 011620

ESC GFEN/NA Consortium Minutes from January 16, 2020 Meeting was called to order at 2:03 pm Eastern Time Attendance: CenterPoint Energy Ann Lovcik DTE Energy Scot McColl Piedmont Natural Gas Carl Peterson Southeast Alabama Gas District Will Bumpers Southern California Gas Co. Carmen Oliver Southwest Gas Michael Favela Spire Ramona Stevens TECO Partners Maru Sims Update from Greg Tomsick, Relationship Manager: Greg started by detailing his recent trip to California in December 2019. He spent time visiting Frontier Energy as well as SoCal’s demo kitchen. His trip included a visit to the headquarters of El Pollo Loco. They are an avid user of natural gas. A detailed write up of Greg’s visit to El Pollo Loco will be posted to the ESC site in the member’s only section for GFEN/NA. Greg will be summarizing all of the visits he has made to customers in the past year and all will be posted to the site so members can be aware of who Greg has visited, what was discussed, who is expanding and where. Greg also shared his travel plans for 2020. They are currently as follows: ESC TMAF – Phoenix, AZ March 2-5 Restaurant Facility Manager Association, RFMA – Denver, CO March 8-10 (Registration pending) National Association of College & University Food Services, NACUFS Continental-Pacific Conference - Colorado Springs, CO March 22-25 (This is a regional conference) Edison Electric National Key Account Workshop, EEI – Atlanta, GA March 28 – April 1 Gas Technology Institute, GTI Visit May 15 National Restaurant Association Show, NRA – Chicago, IL May 16 – 19 ESC TMAF – Columbus, OH June 8 – 11 Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators, MUFSO – Denver, CO September 27-30 ESC TMAF – Minneapolis, MN October 5-8 Edison Electric National Key Account Workshop, EEI – Indianapolis, IN October 24-28 If you are aware of another conference that would benefit GFEN/NA please speak with Greg or Barb. Also, if you would like Greg to visit a customer or an affiliate member who is located near or in any of the cities Greg plans to visit let him know ahead of time so he can adjust his plans accordingly. Ann Lovcik, CenterPoint Energy, asked if Greg made any type of presentation when he called on companies. Greg explained that his method is to use the first meeting to “get to know” the customer as well as introduce himself and explain his background. It is a relationship building process that is working well for him. 2020 Blue Flame Award: This is the final call for companies to apply for the 2020 Blue Flame Award! The purpose of the GFEN Blue Flame Award is to recognize the full spectrum of benefits that come from the development of new and improved appliances. These include added employment, economic development, strengthening of the nation's competitive position and contribution to the public's standard of living. The product must be available for North American sale before the 2020 NRA show occurs. All entries must be submitted by January 31, 2020 and the award will be presented at the 2020 NRA show in Chicago on May 16th. The application form is available through the GFEN site where the solicitation of entries is being promoted. 2020 GFEN/NA Budget Barb shared the GFEN/NA actual figures through November 15th and projected to year-end and the proposed budget for 2020. We spend most of the revenue that comes in each year, and we spend more than what comes in during the years that we have a Customer Care Workshop which is held every 2 years. However, we have a very healthy balance from when we combined the GFEN and NA consortia; our balance is slightly over $409k. So, we have money to spend on worthwhile projects. Barb started the discussion by sharing that the during a call with kitchen managers on Friday, January 10, the suggestion was made to contact Doug Fryette to discuss updating the survey of chefs and foodservice professionals regarding the preference for natural gas cooking. In addition, a suggestion was made by David Zabrowski to include questions on decarbonization. Barb has already reached out to Doug who will be pleased to provide a quote to do an expanded study for us. He has been following the electrification story and is eager to get involved with asking these additional questions. Barb is at IBS all next week and Doug is traveling overseas the week after so we will connect and discuss further in the first week of February. Another suggestion was made by Ann Lovcik to purchase the Size and Impact of the Industry study, which Doug Fryette is also involved with. Doug did note that study will not be ready until late summer. We also discussed the need to do some marketing to get GFEN more notice in the industry. It was noted that we need to promote the tag line “Keeping Gas in the Kitchen”. Several members have shared the names of marketing firms that might have some suggestions for us. Carl Peterson is also going to speak to a new marketing person that recently joined Duke-Piedmont. Carl is hoping to bring her to the Phoenix TMAF. Barb commented that Carl should bring her to the GFEN/NA consortium meeting so she can hear first-hand what we have to say. Carl said he did plan to bring her if she does attend. Carl also mentioned that we might want to consider another name for GFEN. Several commented that the first time meeting people they actually use GFEN’s full name and then switch to the abbreviation. It is worth having additional discussion. We also discussed the need to increase our affiliate members and to keep in touch with the existing members. Barb offered that Greg is available to meet with these members during his travels to see customers and/or attend conferences. Please send Greg the locations of affiliate members that you deal with so Greg can look at visiting them. This discussion led to a discussion on creating relationships with/visiting kitchen design companies. Again, we can have Greg look at adding this to his site visits. Please share any info you may have on this. We also discussed the website and if we wanted to look for a new company to manage the GFEN/NA site. Barb did mention that PIC did a great job of creating blog posts but that they were a little slow in making changes to the site. Ann did note two items that we probably want to remove from the site: the equipment catalog and the user’s guide. We may want to develop a newer version of the user’s guide but the existing version should be removed. The meeting was adjourned at 2:56 PM Eastern time.