The Right Stuff for Houston

It could be a study of contradictions. With the Port of Houston’s 25-mile-long ship channel home to a petrochemical complex second in the world only to one in Rotterdam, 2008 cargo topping 225 million tons, and 8,058 ship calls last year, it would surprise some that a person with no maritime background would be picked to “sail the ship.”

“I came to the port with no maritime background whatsoever,” Alec G. Dreyer, the port’s new executive director, told The Journal of Commerce. “Like most executives in Houston, I was aware of the port, but not as aware as I should have been.”

Prior to joining the port authority, Dreyer was CEO of Horizon Wind Energy, a Houston-based wind energy developer. Before that, he was an executive vice president of Dynegy Inc., in charge of the generation division, and he serves on the board of Comverge, a clean energy company.

The power industry is similar to the port industry in at least one critical aspect: “It is capital intensive,” Dreyer said, “with very long lead times. There is a focus on strategic planning, on understanding where markets are going and preparing to be properly positioned when the markets arrive.”

Houston, the sixth-largest U.S. container port with 2008 volume of 1.8 million TEUs, is good at analyzing the past, Dreyer said. But, “if one of our mandates is economic development, then we need to have a strong opinion on what the economy is doing and why, on where we are going, particularly since we are so capital intensive.”

Dreyer, 50, questions what other industry organizations and businesses have learned from the downturn. “If they’ve learned something new, and I can pick up on that, then my ability is improved. I am reaching out for guidance and counsel,” he said. “That’s a big drive of mine, to get the organization looking forward. If there’s a pervasive change, it (will be) changing that perspective.”

After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Illinois and earning an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis, Dreyer, a certified public accountant, worked for Price Waterhouse for 12 years. He then went to Illinois Power. After two years in finance, he moved to operations and built gas, coal, wind and other types of power facilities in China, Pakistan, India, Costa Rica, Colombia and elsewhere.

After three or four years, Dreyer’s responsibilities were expanded to include the company’s regulated power in Illinois. He then oversaw the changeover to an unregulated marketplace. Dreyer eventually held executive positions at Illinova, Illinois Power and Illinova Generating.

By the late 1990s, Illinois Power needed help managing its large and newly unregulated fleet of power plants, Dreyer said. The big companies at the time were Enron and Dynegy. Illinois chose Dynegy, and the companies eventually merged in 2000. Dreyer moved to Houston.

At that point, he said, “I had responsibility for all of Dynegy’s production as well as Illinois Power and the international fleet.” He was executive vice president in charge of the generation division.

Enron and Dynegy were Houston-based companies and rivals in the deregulated energy market. In November 2001, Dynegy’s then-CEO Chuck Watson bid $7 billion to $8 billion to take over troubled Enron, according to coverage from The Wall Street Journal. The bid was called off before the month ended, and in December, Enron filed bankruptcy. Over the next few months, the California Attorney General sued Dynergy for market misconduct and the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated the company.

There were about 20 senior officers at Dynegy before the crisis, Dreyer said. “Three were left afterward. I was one of them . . . I worked for a year-and-a-half dealing with the Department of Justice, keeping the company out of bankruptcy. We were in that mode for about three years.” He left when Dynegy appointed a new CEO.

Dreyer then joined Horizon Wind, a new company, as CEO. In 2007, Horizon was sold to a Portuguese company for $2.8 billion, and Dreyer found himself freshly retired and able to choose projects that appealed to him.

A search firm hired by the Port of Houston contacted Dreyer in 2009. “The port’s importance to the community is a big selling point for me,” he said.

Dreyer said the port is an environmental leader, making the job a good fit for him. Dealing with environmental problems is not new to Dreyer. Shortly after he became responsible for regulated power at Illinois, the federal government sued the company over emissions problems.

At Horizon Wind, the EPA was on his side of the table. “That gave me a whole new perspective on working with environmental organizations. And at the end of the day, we all live and breathe in these same areas. So there’s a real importance here.”

The key is working diligently with those impacted by your operations, he said, and being “proactively accessible” to customers, elected officials, the local population, stakeholders and local government authorities.

And, ultimately, “I’ve always measured my personal success based on how successful my employees become,” Dreyer said. “What do I need to do to help people managing various segments become successful? That’s what I’m here to do, to help them.”

Contact Janet Nodar at jcnodar@bellsouth.net.