Disclosure: Neale Lunderville is a board member of the Vermont Journalism Trust, the parent company of VTDigger.
Neale Lunderville, a Vermont politics and energy veteran, will take the helm of Vermont Gas Systems this fall.
The utility announced Wednesday that Don Rendall, who has been president and CEO of Vermont Gas since 2015, will step down in September. Lunderville will start working at the company in June and will move into Rendall’s position at the start of October.
“I have had the privilege to work together with a talented, dedicated VGS team,” Rendall said in a statement, adding “I am thrilled that Neale Lunderville, who brings an extraordinary record of building and transforming organizations, will lead VGS in pursuing a bold clean energy vision.”
Rendall led Vermont Gas during the construction of the Addison County pipeline. He also spearheaded climate initiatives at the company, such as making Vermont Gas the first utility to in the country to offer “renewable natural gas” to customers.
The company employs around 130 people and has more than 52,000 customers in Addison, Chittenden and Franklin counties.
Vermont Gas’ controversial Addison County pipeline is the subject of multiple ongoing Public Utility Commission investigations. Pipeline opponents have expressed skepticism about the company’s “climate friendly” rebranding.
When asked how he would respond to activists’ concerns, Lunderville declined to comment on the pipeline as he had not been involved with that project and didn’t want to misstate anything. But he stressed that he welcomes skeptics to “sit around the table” to find ways to work together on shared goals of fighting climate change and affordable energy.
“I’ve had a lot of different roles in the state, and I take a lot of pride in finding ways to work collaboratively with people who might be on different sides of an issue,” he said.
Lunderville, who hails from Richmond, got his start in Vermont politics in the early 2000s as campaign manager for Gov. Jim Douglas, and went on to head multiple state agencies under the governor. He also worked as the Irene Recovery Officer under Gov. Peter Shumlin, and most recently for the Scott administration on its Covid-19 emergency response operations.
Lunderville was also previously the general manager of Burlington Electric Department and co-founded the liquid natural gas trucking company NG Advantage. He said working under Douglas while Vermont was renegotiating Hydro-Quebec power contracts, and as more renewables were being built, piqued his interest in the energy world.
“It’s a field that is developing extremely quickly, there’s tons of innovation going on, and it is also really critical to Vermont’s future,” said Lunderville.
Lunderville consulted with Vermont Gas last year on its plan to get to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. He said he looks forward to bringing more projects like the Salisbury biodigester, which will convert manure into methane, online.
Lunderville foresees that one of the biggest challenges in his new role will be the economic blow dealt to customers by the pandemic.
“We want to be mindful that we want to continue full steam ahead on our climate efforts, but we also want to make sure that we keep our fuel affordable,” he said.
