Learning from Leaders: Donna DeCarolis

🎥 May 13, 2025 📺 American Gas Association ⏱ 2m 👁 80 views

At National Fuel Gas, service isn't just about natural gas lines and meters. In the new episode of #LearningFromLeaders hear ...

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About Donna Decarolis

Donna DeCarolis, president of National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation, has been active in community and policy discussions regarding energy in Western New York. In a December 2024 interview, she stated that proposals to allow the discontinuation of gas service to existing customers were "a bad proposal" and said her company advocated for customers to be able to keep their gas service. She argued that policies pushing electrification mandates "don't make sense" for Western New York, noting that the grid would need to be "quadrupled" to electrify heat. DeCarolis has promoted a website called "betterplannobans.com" to raise awareness about energy policy proposals, saying she believes "the average consumer doesn't know what's being proposed." DeCarolis has also highlighted the company's investments in system modernization and its work on emerging energy technologies. In a 2022 interview, she described the energy sector as undergoing a transition and said National Fuel engineers are working on making systems "hydrogen ready" and exploring renewable natural gas and carbon capture. She has emphasized the company's community involvement, including a program called "Days of Doing" that offers employees a paid day off for volunteer work. DeCarolis serves on the board of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, which she called "the gold standard of chambers" in the region.

Source: AI-verified profile updated from Donna Decarolis's recent appearances. Browse all interviews →

Transcript (7 segments)

Donna Decarolis0:11

I came out of school fresh out of UB, which is the State University of New York at Buffalo, with my MBA, and I was in a number crunching job in our rates and regulatory affairs department.

The people in our industry are just truly remarkable. And I think what we all have in common is we care about making sure our communities are taken care of. We want our customers to be safe, warm. We don't want them to have to worry about energy. We don't want them to have to worry about reliability. And truly, they don't really have to. With the natural gas system that we operate, we're very careful about our planning for our gas supply, of course, to make sure that the gas will be available when needed, but I think also what's critical is to just recognize that our reliability for our delivery system is very, very high. And that's because we've been investing year after year in modernizing our system to make sure it's going to operate safely and reliably even in the coldest of winters.

One of the biggest strengths of our company is our employees, our experience, and how connected we are to the communities in which we live and operate. But what we all have in common is we love our communities, we love our customers, and we want to keep gas there for them.

Something that we do within the community that's newer is called Days of Doing. And what we do is we offer employees a work day to take off and to get out and do some sort of volunteer work.

Tennis is a great sport and I think it's nice to just get out on the court and just be able to hit the ball and not think about anything else except hitting the ball. And then you get off the court and you clear your mind to think about how do we solve some of these challenges that we have.

I've been actively volunteering on boards for many years. A recent example would be the Frank Lloyd Wright Martin House. I think it's really the opus of his residential work and it's right in the city of Buffalo. So, if you're ever visiting Buffalo, you should really visit the Frank Lloyd Wright Darwin Martin House.

I think some of the best advice would be just get to know your employees. Work with your employees. Never ask anybody to do anything that you wouldn't be doing yourself. Everybody is a member of the team.