Photos courtesy of NiSource
Lloyd Yates is nothing if not practical.
Growing up in a tough neighborhood in Norristown, Pennsylvania, the NiSource CEO said that school wasn’t something he really took seriously—until his parents made it clear his 11th grade year that he had two choices after high school: Join the Army or go to college. Either way, he’d have to do something.
“My parents had always talked about me doing something with my life,” said Yates. “Who knows what that means when you’re young and too busy hanging with the wrong people and doing the wrong things. But I think—in fact, I knew—I had that potential to do something different.”
That moment was the turning point for Yates. He brought his grades up, did well on his SATs and enrolled in college, majoring in mechanical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.
After graduation, a fortuitous set of circumstances led him to join the energy industry, and he’s never looked back. Yates was named NiSource’s president and CEO in 2022, and now, as the 2025 chair of the American Gas Association, Yates is leaning on his long experience in energy—where he’s held 19 jobs—to look practically at the role natural gas will play in our country’s energy future, and also to imagine its potential.
As a young man who loved tinkering with cars, a degree in mechanical engineering seemed like a practical choice—with a little bit of dreaming thrown in. Although he’d never even been on an airplane at that time, Yates imagined that he might one day work on aircraft turbines and engines.
But the summer of his junior year, Yates decided he needed a job—any job. So, he took a train to the corner of 30th and Market streets in downtown Philadelphia. He planned to walk all 30 blocks to First Street, knock on doors and find a company that would hire him.
One of the first companies he stopped at was Philadelphia Electric, now PECO Energy, at 23rd and Market. He left an application with a secretary and was strolling down Market when someone burst out of the building and came running after him. “He said, ‘Why didn’t you tell her you were an engineering student?’” said Yates. “I said, ‘Well, she didn’t ask me.’”
The PECO representative showed him a list of summer jobs, and Yates chose a role in the nuclear power division, simply because his uncle worked in construction near the nuclear plant. “It was the only place where I could get a ride to work, so that’s how I started in the energy industry,” he said. “I knew nothing about it—I just needed a job—but I loved it, and I still love it.”
His summer job in quality assurance in nuclear construction soon turned into a full-time position: After Yates graduated in 1982, the utility hired him back to the nuclear power division as a test engineer. But that wasn’t where he would stay. Back then, said Yates, it wasn’t “a kinder, gentler environment. … You went where they told you. So, I ended up going to a lot of different jobs and trying a lot of different things. … I think that benefited me because I was able to get a lot of experience. I worked in every area of the industry.”
He counts them up: All told, he’s held roles in nuclear energy, fossil fuels, transmission, distribution, construction, customer service, finance, engineering—and has even been an operator. He’s done just about everything except IT. “I was always willing to learn something new,” said Yates.
Yates laughed a little when asked if he ever thought he’d be a CEO. “As I was coming up, the concept of a Black man becoming a CEO was not a realistic concept,” he said. “I only wanted to become a plant manager. I thought that if I became a plant manager, I would make $100,000 a year, and I would have everything I ever wanted in life.”
Yates still remembers when the public schools in Norristown were integrated when he was a kid and how he and his friends were taunted in the white neighborhoods as they walked to their new, once all-white school. As an adult, he continued to overcome unconscious bias and racism as he moved up the ranks, learning how to run a utility, developing relationships, and gaining invaluable public policy and regulatory experience.
“You can have 20 years of experience or one year 20 times,” he said. “What that means is, if you sit in a cube doing the same thing for 20 years, that’s one year of experience 20 times, and you’re not learning a lot of different things. My different jobs have allowed me to learn so many different things over time. … I’ve seen a lot.”
As he met other executives, he said he realized, “I could do this. They’re no smarter than me.”
After holding management and leadership roles at PECO and Progress Energy Carolinas’ predecessor Carolina Power & Light, in 2007, Yates was named president and CEO at Progress, a role he held for 14 years until Progress was acquired by Duke Energy. He then became an executive vice president and president of Duke Energy Carolinas.
But still, “you spend a lot of time proving that you belong there. You’re an African American male or female, you got the job, you’re qualified, you’ve gone to graduate school. But you get to the job and [you think], ‘I still have to prove to them that I belong here.’ So, you’re working harder and you’re grinding, trying to generate more ideas, putting in more hours.
"Internally, you try to overcome that," said Yates—and he has: “I’m older now; I don’t feel I have to prove anything.” But that’s why, whenever he hires someone diverse, he tells them, “You got here because of what you know and who you are. You don’t have to accredit yourself every time you speak.”
At NiSource, he’s particularly proud of the fact that the company has one of the most diverse boards and executive teams in the industry. He’s also proud of NiSource’s supplier diversity program, referred to as economic inclusion. Its primary objective is to ensure 25% of the company’s suppliers are economically diverse. “It’s a business imperative,” he said.
For those who might say that diversity, equity and inclusion are altruistic, he has a different outlook. “The thing that differentiates companies—and this is my fourth or fifth company depending on how you do the math—is the talent,” he said.
“In the past, companies didn’t get the best talent because they only had the same kind of people who picked the same other people, so they ended up thinking one way. Whether it’s gender or sexual orientation or race, the purpose of DEI is not to get the Black or white or female talent but to get the best talent in everything you do. … Over time, what you’re trying to do is collect different perspectives, different backgrounds. And if you can figure out how to use and blend those, you get great business results.”
At NiSource, he said, “Stocks are up, we’re making earnings, employee engagement is up and everything is up—because we have different perspectives sitting at the table.”
Yates had just retired from his position at Duke Energy and was serving on three other boards when he was invited to join the board at NiSource in 2020.
Like companies everywhere at that time, NiSource was grappling with issues of how to function remotely and keep the company going, and it was just two years past the Merrimack Valley incident and the subsequent sale of its Massachusetts business. Yates’ strong operational expertise was just what the board needed, and when President and CEO Joe Hamrock announced in 2021 that he planned to retire, Yates decided to put his hat in the ring. “I had always wanted to become a public company CEO,” he said. “The other thing was that I knew I had the right skill set to get the company back on track.”
His time on NiSource’s board had given him an invaluable look at “the people and the culture, the strengths and weaknesses of the company, the financial aspect of it. It gave me a significant head start,” said Yates. “There’s a very committed group of people here. They like the company, they like what they do. … They love the industry, and they like serving customers.”
So, Yates decided to focus first on the people and the culture. His initial strategic business review worked on getting employees involved in improving the company—removing any barriers; handing over the right tools, training and resources; then “getting out of their way.”
“I believe in people,” he said. “I believe that people come to work to do a good job, and if leaders took the time to ask employees how we can do this better, they’ll tell you. And if you implement that, they become even more passionate about their work.”
NiSource also adopted a new core value: “Look for a better way.” “That’s even if something is successful,” added Yates. One example is his enterprise-wide transformation effort called Project Apollo, which focuses on transformative ideas to lower the company’s operating and maintenance expenses. Those ideas—all from NiSource employees—helped Project Apollo achieve its goal of more than $50 million in cost-saving initiatives in just its first year. For instance, NiSource is saving $700,000 annually with one simple change: eliminating perforations on customer billing.
Another transformation project, NiSource Next: Connected Customer Experience, has already been recognized by leading industry forums and awards—including the SAP Innovation Awards, J.D. Power and Associates, and E Source’s Achievement in Customer Experience Award—for a self-service customer platform driven by artificial intelligence. Customers can go online to request utility services, pay a bill, or get help from a chatbot designed and trained exclusively for the utility industry. In the words of one customer: “Easy and convenient. Simple to use. Everything is at your fingertips.”
“Better utilization of the data we have is the way to think about AI,” said Yates. “As we collect data and we know more about, let’s say, the natural gas business, how many dekatherms we use, how many go into the system, our emissions, and the data from our [geographic information] systems and Google maps—you put all these things together and you can find your emissions, reduce methane and drive yourself to net zero. More efficient utilization of all this data will make us exponentially better providers of energy and heat and power to our customers.”
Practically speaking, all these projects come down to one thing: helping the customer. Nowhere is that clearer than in NiSource’s commitment to projects involving hydrogen. An industry leader in the fuel, NiSource is leading a first-of-its-kind controlled-blending project to demonstrate the efficacy of hydrogen combined with natural gas in blends of 2% to 20% in a model home in the utility’s Safety Town. NiSource is also integrally involved in two U.S. Department of Energy hydrogen hub projects: the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen Hub and the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub.
Ultimately, hydrogen’s role, said Yates, is to help customers reduce their carbon footprint without a significant capital investment while retaining the reliability and cost savings of natural gas. “Thirty-five percent of our customers operate on less than $50,000 a year,” said Yates. “They’re not going to throw out a perfectly good furnace, fireplace or gas stove and replace those with electric appliances. So, what we need to do is figure out how can we help them reduce their carbon dioxide footprint with the appliances they have.”
He added, “The thing about electrification is that at best you can convert natural gas to electricity at 70% efficiency—and that’s with a combined-cycle natural gas turbine. … When you think about efficiency investments for people who are struggling financially, I think hydrogen will be really important.
“Ultimately, it helps NiSource, and it helps the United States reduce its CO₂ footprint in a way that’s going to make a significant difference.”
As he assumes the role of AGA’s 2025 chair, Yates plans to continue talking about the key role of natural gas in the nation’s energy future. His primary message? The impact that any proposed elimination of natural gas would have on actual customers and “how impractical that is,” he said.
“We want to do more talking to the people who disagree with us and help them to understand our position. Going back to the example I said earlier, across this country, people are struggling economically, and this idea of throwing out their natural gas appliances is ridiculous. It’s not feasible, and they’re not going to do it,” he said. “We have this valuable natural resource that’s really good for the economy that, if we could work on using that better, we’re going to be a much better-off country. So, it’s about being visible and extolling the virtues of natural gas—and getting a message out that we can all align around.”
A MECHANIC’S MINDSET
Lloyd Yates has never lost his love for cars.
When he’s not working or being “Paw Paw” to his three grandchildren, he has his sleeves rolled back and a car hood up, working away on one of his six cars. “I have six today,” he added. “I may work on something, fix it up, get it going, sell it, then start all over.”
For Yates, working on engines gets his mind off things. “If I just sit down and do nothing, I start thinking about work,” he said. “Working on my cars allows me to hone my mechanical mind by looking for a better way to solve a unique problem. Much like what we’re trying to do at NiSource.”As part of sharing this message, he hopes to interact more with varied organizations across the country to work together on an all-of-the-above energy strategy. Low-price natural gas, after all, has played a key role in the country’s energy transition from fuels such as coal, he added, and must continue to play a role because of its reliability during tough weather situations and its ongoing affordability.
While at press time, the outcome of the November elections was still in question, Yates is firm on this: “No matter who wins, it will affect the industry in the short term. But setting policy for energy is a much longer-term strategy. As we think about natural gas, what’s the long game here?”
For Yates, it’s not about what’s going to happen over the next four years or even the next eight years.
“We’re focused on the long game. … We’re going to be here, this country needs us to be here, and they need to commit to us being here. Together, we’re going to figure out how to work within the parameters that we have so that natural gas can continue to serve as a reliable and affordable energy supplier here in the United States.”