Employees and management of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power are mourning the loss of former General Manager Robert V. Phillips, who died June 28, 2008 at the age of 91. 

Funeral services will be held this week.  A memorial service is planned for the week of August 14 but arrangements have not been completed

Robert V. Phillips served as General Manager of the Los Angeles Deaprtment of Water and Power from May 1972 to April 1975. He had joined LADWP in 1939 as a junior civil engineer in the Owens Valley. He moved up the ranks and was appointed the head of the Aqueduct Division in 1961 and Chief Waterworks Engineer and Deputy General Manager in 1967.

Among his major accomplishments in senior management positions was the construction and completion of the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct and also an energy conservation campaign in response to the oil embargo.

He was also among the last employees to have known and spoken with LADWP's first General Manager William Mulholland.

An extensive and detailed biography is provided below. This biography was prepared by former senior LADWP managers and colleagues, who worked witih Mr. Phillips, and his family. 

BIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT V. PHILLIPS

Robert V. Phillips, former General Manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, died in Pasadena on June 28, 2008, following several months of deteriorating health.  He was 91. 

Phillips was General Manager and Chief Engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power from May 1972 to April 1975.  As head of the largest municipally owned utility in the nation, he joined a new generation of utility managers confronted by major new national and state environmental laws and the dramatic changes they accelerated in electric utility economics. Additionally, in reaction to an unforeseen and unprecedented Arab oil embargo, Mr. Phillips took the initiative in implementing long-term measures to insure reliable, low-cost electricity for Los Angeles in the face of rapidly rising fuel costs. He also had to contend with the consequences of a major change in labor relations laws in California, including a strike.

The early 1970's ushered in major changes in electric utility economics.  Prior to that, electric utilities were considered a declining cost industry. Each new steam generation unit put on line was able to produce electricity more cheaply than older units through the use of technological improvements that increased efficiency. Over several decades, electric utilities generally operated without rate increases.  In 1965 Los Angeles was even able to lower its rates to reflect these savings.  However, by the beginning of the new decade the technology and efficiency of steam generation had reached a plateau and the onset of major new environmental mitigation measures required by the Clean Air Act was adding greatly to the cost of generation.  As a consequence, electric utilities, including the Department of Water and Power, faced the need for regular rate increases to keep up with these rising costs.

When Phillips became General Manager, the City's electrical generation relied primarily on oil or natural gas burning steam plants in the Los Angeles basin. In 1967, in order to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions, the Department had agreed to use only low sulfur fuel oil when natural gas was not available, The Department's reliance on foreign low-sulfur fuel oil came into sharp focus in December 1973, when the Arab oil producing countries announced they were boycotting shipment of oil to the United States. This brought chaos and great discomfort to all Americans who soon would be lining up at gas stations on either odd or even days to buy gas.  Like the rest of the electric utility industry, the Department's conventional approach to short-term electricity shortages was the use of rolling blackouts, similar to those used during power shortages statewide today.  However, when confronted with this prospect, Mayor Tom Bradley immediately appointed a Blue Ribbon Committee of civic leaders to devise another way to ration electricity use in the City that would be less disruptive to the business community and the public. 

That plan required Phillips and the Department to immediately install and manage a rationing plan that penalized customers who did not conserve electricity based upon historical usage. The plan was rapidly implemented with great success and Los Angeles led the nation by reducing electricity usage by 17% during the first quarter of 1974, until the Arab oil boycott ended. This effort and a number of other conservation initiatives soon put the Department in a leadership role in promoting energy conservation. Toward this end the Department, under Phillips' leadership, worked closely with another Blue Ribbon Committee appointed by the Mayor to revise its electric rate structure to promote greater energy conservation on an ongoing basis, while easing the burden on low-income customers. Again, the Department became a model for utilities nationwide that were trying to promote the new conservation ethic. The Department's new rate structure was approved by the City Council in 1975.

Most importantly, Phillips accelerated the Department's efforts to develop generation that did not depend on foreign oil, taking the lead in implementing the emerging national consensus at the time to "get off oil" and reduce the country's strategic vulnerability.  In 1974 the Department gained City Council approval to participate in the coal-fired Intermountain Power Project in Utah which remains one of the main sources of power for the City today and remains unaffected by the rising cost of oil. DWP also tried to develop a nuclear plant in the San Joaquin Valley but was stymied in that effort by opposition in Sacramento.

During Phillips' tenure, the Water System also faced major challenges including the construction of a new reservoir to replace the key in-basin Lower Van Norman Reservoir that was badly damaged during the major Sylmar earthquake on February 9, 1971. That earthquake also caused great damage to the Sylmar Converter station that terminated the newly constructed high voltage direct current transmission connection with the Pacific Northwest and the Bonneville Power Administration. Both projects were vigorously pursued during Phillips' management of the Department.

Phillips faced yet another major challenge in 1974 when DWP employees went out on strike. In 1968 the California State legislature had passed the Meyers Milias Brown Act (MMB) which gave labor unions greater freedom to organize public employees, collectively bargain, and ultimately strike. One of the first major strikes by public employees following MMB was the 1974 strike by the unions representing Department of Water and Power employees, the most important of which was the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 18.  The strike lasted several days and badly polarized labor-management relations at the Department for some time to come, but it ushered in a fundamental new dynamic in managing the Department. Unlike private sector utilities, which operated under the National Labor Relations Act and which only allowed unions to organize up to the level of foreman, the Department, under MMB, was left extremely vulnerable to a strike because all but a literal handful of employees at the top could walk out in a strike.

As the Chief Waterworks Engineer and Deputy General Manager of the Department from 1967 through 1972, Phillips oversaw the design and construction of the Second Aqueduct from the eastern Sierra that would increase the City's ability to import water from the Mono Basin and the Owens Valley, its principal source of water.  He also led the response to and recovery from the 1971 Sylmar earthquake which had damaged sections of both the original and second aqueducts from the eastern Sierra, and northerly portions of the distribution system in the San Fernando Valley. Mr. Phillips served as Assistant Chief Water Works Engineer from 1966-67.

From 1961 to 1967 Phillips was head of the Aqueduct Division, responsible for managing this key water lifeline bringing water from the eastern Sierra, 300 miles to the north, overseeing the City's almost 300,000 acres of land in Inyo and Mono Counties, and maintaining good relations with the civic leaders and communities there.

Phillips was uniquely qualified to be the Department's manager in the Owens Valley because he had spent time there first as a youth when taken there on trips in the late 1920's by his father, who at the time headed up the Aqueduct Division.  Later he would work there during the summer as a college student in the 1930's.  He began his career with the Department there as a Junior Civil Engineer in 1939. Shortly thereafter he met Mary V. Bandhauer of Independence and they were married that same year. She had been raised in the Owens Valley and her father ran the general merchandise store in Independence. In 1941 they purchased a lot in Independence and designed and built a home there which is still owned by his daughter Jane. During this period Phillips took on many responsibilities as the only engineer based in the Valley.  He enjoyed telling of his many adventures then, such as snow surveys in the Sierra. That is when he met Dave McCoy, who was a Department hydrographer at the time, but who would later go on to found the Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort.  They remained lifelong friends. Over the years Phillips gained the respect of the Owens Valley's people and their leaders and worked with them on numerous projects benefiting the communities there. Phillips also served on the Board of Trustees of the Owens Valley Unified School District from 1946-52.   

New environmental legislation that had been approved by Congress and California's legislature in the late 1960s and early 1970s, particularly the environmental review process they mandated, had a major impact on the City's water gathering activities in the Owens Valley, giving new legal authority and standing to environmental interests. Soon major environmental groups such as the Mono Lake Committee, the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club and others, as well as government entities such as Inyo County and the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District pursued a number of lawsuits or regulations against the City to restrict the City's export of water and reallocate its use for the benefit of the valley's environment. Over the years many of these lawsuits were successful.

While Phillips vigorously defended the City's water rights in the Owens Valley throughout his career, he was also a firm believer in working cooperatively with the communities there and endeavored to build a mutually beneficial relationship.  He took great pride in the role the Department and the City had played in preserving the natural environment there and preventing the development that had destroyed so many other beautiful natural areas. He loved the Owens Valley and moved back there after the death of his second wife Janie in 2003 and lived most recently in Bishop before his health began to deteriorate this April. Few other people knew the history, land, agriculture, geology and people of the Owens Valley as well as Phillips and he took great pleasure describing it to others. Those that were able to participate in such discussions with Phillips treasure those moments and the especially warm, gracious, humorous and friendly person he was.

Phillips had entered UCLA shortly after it opened. He took pre-engineering courses there and was a member of the Varsity Crew.  However, since UCLA did not yet have an upper division engineering program, he transferred to the University of California at Berkeley where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering in 1939.

In addition to being General Manager of the Department of Water and Power, Phillips was one of the last remaining links to the early history of the Department. As a youth and young man he met with William Mulholland when visiting his father, who was part of Mulholland's management team.  His family was also close to another early water leader's family, the Van Normans. Harvey Van Norman was the Department's third General Manager between 1928 and 1944. Phillips told many stories of the Department's early leaders and their efforts.

During his career, Phillips was an officer or Board member of many engineering, utility, and public service organizations, including: the American Public Power Association, the Electric Power Research Institute, Western Energy Supply and Transmission Associates, California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, the California Municipal Utilities Association, the California Water Resources Association, the United States Committee on Large Dams, the American Water Works Association and Water and Power Associates. In addition he served as Vice Chairman of the Water and Power Committee of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. He was a fellow in the Institute for the Advancement of Engineering and the American Society of Civil Engineers and was appointed to and served on the Engineering Advisory Council of the University of California.

Among his many professional honors, he received the Engineer of the Year Award in 1973 from the Institute for the Advancement of Engineering, and the Stephen Bechtel Engineering Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers.

After his retirement in 1975 Phillips served as a consultant to the World Bank on municipal water system development in Thailand and was a private consultant on projects in the U.S., Egypt and Brazil. For seven years he was Adjunct Professor of Engineering at UCLA. He was appointed to the Management Board of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority that served 200,000 people of the Navajo Nation in the Southwest in an area of 25,000 square miles.  He was proud to have served in that capacity for more than 16 years. Over the years, Phillips was also an occasional contributor to the Op-ed pages of the Los Angeles Times.

His interests and hobbies were many and varied, including amateur astronomy and telescope making. He was an expert sailor, and his oil paintings won numerous prizes. 

He is survived by his daughter Jane Phillips Wehrey and son-in-law Michel Wehrey; grandchildren Frederic Wehrey and Catherine Wehrey; sister-in-law, Geneva Phillips; nephews Richard Phillips and Gregory Phillips; and Cynthia Selkirk Price and family, and Steven Selkirk.