Born in Argentina but growing up in Washington, D.C., politics and policy were never far from Karen Harbert’s doorstep.
But it wasn’t until college, at Houston’s Rice University, when Harbert decided to pursue a career along that line, completing a degree in international policy studies and political science. It was the 1980s, and President Ronald Reagan was putting the pieces back together in the aftermath of Watergate and other issues and was figuring out relations with Russia. “It really piqued my interest to see how I could be involved in something larger than a simple career, a simple job,” she said.
What followed was a rich career that would take Harbert to developing countries around the world, back to her adopted hometown of Washington, and all across the nation. Now, as the new president and CEO of the American Gas Association, Harbert plans to levy that vast experience in both domestic and international energy policy, her success in developing key partnerships with allies and her practical take on getting things done—and not burning bridges in the process.
The Reagan connection would continue after college: Harbert’s first job was at the Republic National Committee, where she worked for co-chair Maureen Reagan. “Invariably, [President Reagan] would call, and I would be so nervous about transferring him to Maureen’s office without hanging up on the president,” she said with a laugh.
Several moves later, Harbert would work under another president, George W. Bush, as White House liaison and later in economic development in the Latin American bureau for the U.S. Agency for International Development—capitalizing, she said, on her ability to speak Spanish.
She traveled to Haiti, Bolivia, the jungles of Peru—“places you’d never go on vacation”—working to further economic development and provide humanitarian assistance in those regions based on a philosophy of “rather than giving a person a fish, teaching them how to fish.”
It was in those third-world countries, where power and fuel can literally be life-changing, that her own life and career were changed.
“I am convinced that there is more advanced technology coming out of the energy industry than any other industry, including Silicon Valley and the IT industry. … It’s time to tell that story.”
“One thing that continued to strike me [was] why were we more successful in Colombia than we were in Bolivia? … And it wasn’t just food assistance, it wasn’t just providing opportunity. It was really about the fundamentals of a healthy economy, and it led me to understand that energy was really that bright dividing line. Those countries that had access to energy were then able to build manufacturing jobs, were able to keep the lights on at night, which means kids were not on the street, they were at home and they were studying. … It kept women employed and gave them opportunity. So, in many different facets, energy was that bright dividing line that separated the developing world from the developed world.”
That epiphany was the spark that would lead her to a role in the private sector for a developer of billion-dollar international infrastructure and power projects in developing nations and high-risk areas. Among the many projects she helped develop during her 12 years there was the first privately financed natural gas-fired power plant in Colombia, which played a key role in helping the country move to the healthy economy it enjoys today.
That job brought Harbert another life-changing lesson: “[It] really helped me to get a firm grasp of something that I think is very important that I’ve carried through my career. … At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you’re in Haiti or in Iowa, it’s all about evaluating your risks and making smart business decisions. … You have to evaluate the entire landscape of what you’re trying to solve, find ways to manage the risks where you can, evaluate the risks that remain and figure out if it makes sense to go forward or not.”
For Harbert, going forward would mean going back—to Washington, D.C., and the USAID, where she applied the lessons she’d learned. She worked on reforming the agency’s development policy and focusing on the role of energy in order to build Colombia’s economy and combat that country’s drug war, while applying similar policies to economies in Peru, Bolivia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
She next joined the U.S. Department of Energy as an assistant secretary for policy and international affairs, where she had the opportunity to hone her skills on the domestic side of energy. “I found the challenges in the United States were not that much different than many of the challenges that I had seen around the world in the energy space—privatization of assets, risk management, fair regulation, fair taxation,” she said.
Next, at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Harbert was tapped to join the newly formed Global Energy Institute, then named the Institute for 21st Century Energy, where she would later serve as president and CEO. It was 2008, “[and] our energy landscape looked very, very different,” said Harbert. It was a time of energy insecurity as the United States was importing vast quantities of oil and natural gas and energy was viewed as a national security threat—demonstrated in the fact that the institute’s first CEO was Gen. Jim Jones, a four-star Marine general and former NATO commander.
During more than a decade at the institute, Harbert served in a role that, now looking back, would offer the ideal launch pad to lead an energy association.
As the institute’s president and CEO, she helped it evolve into a national and international force in advancing progrowth energy policies and pushing back against restrictive regulations. For example, during her leadership, the institute helped overturn export bans that have, in turn, led to the United States’ emergence as a global leader in the export of liquefied natural gas. “We were also successful in confronting some of the very onerous environmental regulations of the previous administration,” she said, “and finding reasonable replacements that benefited the industry, the environment and the economy … that right balance of that three-legged stool to advance everybody’s interest.”
MAKING HISTORY
It’s worthwhile to note that Karen Harbert is making history as AGA’s first female president. She is aware of the weight of that—indeed, of the weight of being a highly successful woman in a traditionally male-dominated industry.
“I’ve been very fortunate in my life,” she said, “to have worked for really capable leaders, everybody from when I worked at USAID to the Department of Energy to the private sector. And they never looked at me as ‘the woman.’” Instead, she said, they respected the job she held.
“All of those were men,” she said. But “it never intimidated me. Because I believe deeply that … you work hard, you go above and beyond every day to meet and exceed people’s expectations, you’re not afraid to speak up and give a thoughtful opinion, and [you make sure] you’re heard.
“Somebody asked me, ‘How do you think it will be different at AGA?’ And I said, ‘I hope it’s not going to be different. I hope it’s even better.’ Because an opportunity to lead an organization is to lead by example. And I have a theory that everything you deliver as a leader needs to be platinum. … There’s no gold standard, it’s not bronze—it’s platinum. You need to be shooting to be the very best every day, and if you can’t do that, then you shouldn’t be doing it.”
When it comes to maintaining that balance, natural gas checks all the boxes. “There is no doubt that natural gas has a bright future in our energy portfolio,” said Harbert. “It makes energy sense, it makes environment sense, it’s keeping our economy healthy, it’s benefiting consumers, it’s bringing down our emissions and it’s an opportunity for this industry to play an even bigger role on the policy stage going forward.”
At the time of this interview, Harbert was just a day away from attending the retirement festivities for former AGA President and CEO Dave McCurdy and meeting staff at AGA’s headquarters on North Capitol Street, overlooking the U.S. Capitol building.
“I step into an organization that’s been led very capably by Dave McCurdy [and] a very active board of directors,” she said. “They’ve been very clear that they want the work on safety to continue. They want people to understand how innovative the industry is, they want to be seen as part of the solution to solving both our nation’s energy demands and our environmental demands. So, I see it as a way to step up and grow that platform so that there’s a broader understanding of the value of natural gas, to make sure we have the right policy environment to grow natural gas in our energy portfolio and ultimately to make sure that the social license for natural gas to operate is there.”
Safety has always been at the forefront of our industry’s top priorities, and that will never change. But what must change, said Harbert, is how we communicate the proactive stance that the natural gas industry has always taken on safety, not only to consumers, but also policymakers.
“People are a very important part of this—ensuring people understand that safety is priority No. 1 and helping consumers and businesses know that that’s what we take as our first job every day,” she said. “And we have to continue our work with codes and standards. The government doesn’t know better than the industry how to be safe. So, our industry has to work hard to convince policymakers and regulators that we do take our safety mandate seriously and are investing money, time, resources and people in achieving that safety every day.”
“Having grown up in this town and worked in this town for a long time, I have seen politicians adopt platforms in order to get elected and not being able to deliver. In my role, whether that’s been in government or the private sector or here at AGA, it’s been to provide those common-sense, practical solutions to advance our agenda. It’s one thing to be for a moonshot, it’s another thing to actually deliver 24/7 the energy that fuels this economy. So, I’m less about platitudes and I’m more about practical solutions.”
Innovation, in many ways, goes hand in hand with that, advancing new methods of delivering energy. During her time traveling across the nation to promote energy policy, Harbert has seen examples of utility innovation firsthand, including the largest battery array in the world, run by Sempra; Southern Company’s Smart Neighborhood in Alabama; and Houston’s first net-zero-emission power plant. Then there are the numerous innovations improving how utilities interact with customers and provide customer choice. “It varies by year, but the energy industry invests about $28 billion every year in research and development,” said Harbert, “and I am convinced that there is more advanced technology coming out of the energy industry than any other industry, including Silicon Valley and the IT industry. … It’s time to tell that story.”
FAMILY LIFE
“I’m very much a family person,” said Karen Harbert, who is married to Michael Mitchell and has a daughter, Taylor, who will soon be going to college, and a son, Grayden, who is entering high school.
Family time away from work has often focused on traveling and enjoying new cuisines (Harbert is a self-described foodie), including vacations out West, usually Montana, where the family hikes, camps and goes fishing. More recently, Harbert has convinced her family to become certified in scuba diving. It was a sport she learned in college and has continued to this day.
“I don’t go as often as I would like,” she said. These days, she and her family try to take trips every couple of years, diving in the waters around Mexico, Honduras or the Caribbean. On her bucket list is Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. It’s a priceless experience, she said, “to be able to see the underwater world and all the adventure that brings.”
Still, no technology can deliver natural gas if the proper infrastructure isn’t in place. One need only look to New England for an example of what can happen when new pipelines aren’t built, as that region faces constraints, moratoriums and high energy bills for consumers. As she did during her work with the DOE and the U.S. Chamber, Harbert sees that need as an opportunity for thoughtful conversations with policymakers at every level.
“We don’t have to look too far in the rearview mirror to see the Russian LNG tanker in the Boston Harbor, when the Marcellus Shale gas is only about 100 miles away,” said Harbert, who retweeted a Senate Energy GOP tweet on the incident, with the comment, “#TimeToBuild #EnergyStrong Inexplicable with abundant natural gas 100 miles away.”
That event underscored the profound need and opportunity for American natural gas, even as activists are working to keep every molecule in the ground. During her tenure, Harbert plans to continue the hard work of permit reform in order to ensure a fair and balanced permitting process for the build-out of pipelines, compressor stations and other invaluable infrastructure.
At the same time, she hopes to work with states to ensure that the state regulatory process can work in conjunction with the federal process, not against it. “We have to take the interests of the entire country into account,” she said. “We have to work very hard to make sure states have the opportunity to weigh in ... but that one governor, one state can’t stop the entire progress of an entire region.”
During her time at the Global Energy Institute, Harbert led the development of the “Energy Works for US” platform, championing policies to secure the American energy future, create millions of jobs, billions of dollars in revenue and trillions in private investment, and leveraging grassroots advocates to promote those efforts.
There are parallels to the work she plans to do at AGA. “Every day, you have to be marketing your product,” she said, whether that’s to consumers, businesses, policymakers, legislators or others. “Advocacy is going to be a big, important priority of mine, and I think for our entire organization. Because our members need other people to tell their story, as they are telling their story every day to their customers as well.
“You know, trade associations hold a very high confidence factor with the American public. So [we want to utilize] that platform and the power of our brand and our identity to really continue to be that echo chamber with customers, with businesses [and] with communities on our commitment to being there for them every day, 24/7.”
A Global Perspective
Karen Harbert has come full circle: When she started her career in the late ’80s, the United States was dependent on foreign fuels. Today, the United States is a leading global producer and exporter.
That turnaround has had incredible impacts, both domestically and globally, she says. As production is set to remain high through 2050 and beyond, Harbert sees opportunities to invest not just in energy, but also in related industries, such as advanced manufacturing opportunities in fertilizer and petrochemicals, to keep the economy strong. Around the world, the power of U.S. energy has resulted in reduced trade deficits and lower geopolitical risk as the United States is less reliant on certain countries.
Meanwhile, as global demand for U.S. liquefied natural gas continues, there’s also a key opportunity to establish strong relationships with developing world markets and continue to build relationships with allies including Europe and South Asia by providing an alternative supply that otherwise would have been filled by countries such as Russia. “It’s a game changer,” said Harbert.
While U.S. natural gas utilities are more domestically focused, a global perspective remains important, said Harbert: “Looking to ensure that entire value proposition and policy paradigm are in line to help natural gas find its way to market here and around the world is in every member’s interest.”
