- Barbara Lockwood
- Position: Vice President of Regulation at Arizona Public Service Co.
- Tenure: Joined Arizona Public Service Co. in 1999.
- School: BS in chemical engineering from Clemson University and MS in environmental engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.
A lot of job candidates move on after receiving that rejection email. Not so for Barbara Lockwood. She wanted to work at Arizona Public Service Co., the largest utility in the state, so badly that she applied again when the person they hired instead of her quit. And the second time? She got it.
"I think the energy business is such a phenomenal place to be to do great things for the community and the environment," Lockwood told Utility Dive. She's called APS home for the last 18 years and moved up the ranks to become vice president of regulation.
Lockwood got her start in engineering — more specifically, chemical engineering. She entered the field at a time when men were not so subtle about their distaste for women in the workplace.
"I was ... working at a chemical plant, and I was 25 years old and I had team of white men in their 50's working for me," Lockwood recalled, "I choose not to share a lot of the details ... but I think you can imagine that was often an uncomfortable place to be."
She survived that experience with the help of other women in the company, a familiar theme in many working women's stories. But even as workforce issues smoothed out, she noted there is still a lot of work to be done.
"The [#MeToo] evolution that is happening now is long overdue," Lockwood added.
Lockwood credits her mother for instilling ambition and a drive to support herself in a family where she was the first college graduate.
"She was clear with me for as long as I could remember that the only acceptable outcome was to get an education and support myself no matter what man came into my life," Lockwood said. "That I give myself a good standard of living."
Other mentors stepped in to nurture a love of sciences and math in the form of teaching. In fact, one of them found an opportunity for Lockwood to visit a chemical plant, cementing a desire to work at one.
Fast forward a couple of decades, and Lockwood is mentoring other up-and-coming women in the company. Many of the issues she faced at 25 continue today. That includes:
- Salary negotiation
- Having concerns taken seriously
- Types of roles within an organization
"I think the first thing [is] you have to ask. If you don't ask, you never get anything," Lockwood said. "I've been truly surprised in the later things in my career that I got. The worst that can happen is that someone says no."
Lockwood has often been accused of "lighting the building unnecessarily," she says.
"I would say that's probably true, but if I didn't do it at times I wouldn't be heard," Lockwood said. "I heard a saying 'if ambition hasn't hurt you, you are not ambitious enough.' I don't take no easily in large part because I believe so strongly in what we're doing."
Echoing experts, Lockwood pushes the importance of more women in leadership roles to set an example for women climbing behind them. This would help utilities in particular recruit and retain a more diverse workforce.
"I think some of it is cultural ... we are a conservative, kind of button up industry that is a little bit of behind where the rest of the world is," Lockwood said. "We need to do something to address that for the younger generation."
