by Rob Taylor Jr.
Courier Staff Writer
Kevin Walker, as he tells it, didn’t see too much prosperity growing up in parts of Southeast Washington, D.C. and Maryland. He said that no one in his family had a college degree, or owned their own home, or had a big-time job to brag about that was bringing in the big bucks.
Kevin Walker said he never knew his biological father; his mother had him when she was 16 years old. Five years later, his mother got married to a man who, in effect, became his father. The two parents had a spiritual, Christian background, and they, along with Walker’s grandparents, always cheered for the young Walker to shoot for the moon.
“‘We can’t help you, but we want you to do better, get out there, find people that are willing to invest in you,’” Walker recalled his parents telling him. “And I did that.”
It’s safe to say that Walker overcame the odds. He said it himself. “If you think about the influences on my life at the time, it wasn’t necessarily a path out of the hood that I could see around me,” he told the New Pittsburgh Courier in an exclusive interview, June 10.
He did well in high school, Oxon Hill High School, in Prince George’s County, Md. Academically and in athletics. He was captain of both the football and wrestling teams. Like a sponge, he soaked up positive knowledge and advice from guidance counselors, teachers, even from the parents of his friends who were steadily giving advice.
After high school, he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where Walker realized that “I was pretty much similar to all the other folks around there, they weren’t any better or worse than I was.”
Today, he’s the first African American and first person of color to hold the position of President and CEO of Duquesne Light Company.
Chances are good that, if you’re reading this article in the Pittsburgh area, you’re one of Walker’s 600,000 customers. As you’re reading this article, chances are good that Walker is strategizing how to keep Duquesne Light at the forefront of energy innovation, which has an unspoken benefit to the Pittsburgh region. Or, Walker could be holding a meeting right now making sure that his company is leading the way in having a diverse workforce — who knows, you could be the next hire at Duquesne Light.
Walker told the Courier he understands the “value proposition for attracting and retaining diverse people in the company. I don’t have to think about it intellectually; I’ve experienced it and I can feel it.”
Walker, who was named President and CEO on June 1 by the Board of Directors of Duquesne Light Holdings, LLC, said it hasn’t sunk in yet that he’s at the top of Duquesne Light’s mountain. “I think it will settle in over time,” he told the Courier. “I do recognize the magnitude of the accomplishment of what’s happened with me moving into this role.”
He was quick to recognize others who have blazed the trails for him to eventually get this type of position, such as Victor Roque, an African American man who became Duquesne Light’s general counsel in 1994, then became president of Duquesne Light and executive vice president of Duquesne Light Holdings, LLC, in the early 2000s. Dianna Green also was a powerful force for Duquesne Light—an African American woman who had risen to senior vice president in the ‘90s and was a leader in Pittsburgh’s Black community.
“I didn’t get here by myself and I know that I’m standing on the shoulder of giants,” Walker said.
Walker said he feels a huge responsibility to the African American community. But he said he’s used to it. “I went to West Point where there’s not a lot of African Americans that went there…not only was I representing myself, I was representing the African American community in an environment that was super challenging and quite frankly, people were looking at you under a microscope. Can you really compete, perform, lead in a way that we’re expecting you to…”
Being at West Point, in the state of New York, was a “game-changer” for Walker. “It showed me that I could do more” than what may have been presented to him earlier in life, he said. Walker was in the military for six and a half years, the last year deployed to the Middle East in support of Operation Desert Storm.
After leaving the Army, he attained a position at Commonwealth Edison, a public utility company more commonly known as ComEd, in New York City in 1991. He’s been in the industry ever since.
Prior to joining Duquesne Light as chief operating officer in April 2020, he served as senior vice president of customer and operations services and nuclear decommissioning at Southern California Edison. In that role, he oversaw customer experience for more than five million accounts. Walker also has held chief operations officer-level positions at both Iberdrola and American Electric Power.
In the year-plus that Walker had served as Duquesne Light’s COO, the DLC Board of Directors saw that Walker had the makings of a CEO.
“If you want to be perceived as a CEO and you’re the COO, operate like that,” Walker told the Courier. “I acted in a way a CEO would.”
“Kevin has played an integral role at DLC over the past year in helping to navigate the complexities of the COVID pandemic,” said Joseph Guyaux, chairman of the Duquesne Light Board of Directors, in a statement. “We have been impressed with Kevin’s business acumen, vision of the energy future and commitment to supporting employees, customers and the communities we serve.”
The primary difference between a CEO and COO is that CEOs are more outward-facing, and set the company up for success long-term. “They paint the vision, are able to articulate and bring people along on where you’re trying to go and are able to interface with external stakeholders in a way that they become supportive of what you’re trying to accomplish,” Walker said.
Now, he is that person, leading Duquesne Light into what he calls an exciting future of innovation and creativity. But there’s more to it than that for Walker, who holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from West Point Academy and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. There’s an exciting future for Duquesne Light in propelling qualified African American individuals into prominent positions with the company. Walker and his team are committed to it. He told the Courier he’s also committed to the younger generation—those who may have come from his similar humble beginnings, growing up “poor,” as he described in his own words.
“Believe that you can be and do better than you may even see around you,” Walker said as inspiration for younger people. “I think we can strain ourselves in what we see; I can only do this much, I can only aspire to be these things but I can’t do more…unleash your full potential. Believe that you can do more and be more, and then look for people who see the same thing that you see in yourself, because they’ll invest in you and help you get to what you’re trying to accomplish.”
KEVIN WALKER, formerly Duquesne Light’s Chief Operating Officer, was named President and Chief Executive Officer on June 1. He’s the first African American to hold the title of DLC President and CEO.
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