When Mike Renna became CEO of South Jersey Industries, the company’s earnings were split almost evenly between its utility and non-utility businesses.
Today, that split is roughly 90/10 in the utility’s favor — the result of a deliberate bet Renna made early in his tenure to divest much of SJI’s non-regulated side and pour capital into modernizing its gas infrastructure instead.
“One of the first things we did when I became CEO was downsize and divest of a lot of our non-utility businesses to really focus on our utility, where there was just such an incredible opportunity to deploy capital — the modernization of the infrastructure,” he said. “I think that in and of itself was the foundation for everything that came after it.”
Read more on Mike Renna:
- Renna to retire as SJI’s CEO, capping a nearly 30-year run in South Jersey energy sector
- Retiring SJI CEO Renna: N.J. needs to get moving on nuclear, now
- Renna’s exit interview: Outgoing CEO of SJI on where the sector stands
The pivot was all part of a nearly 30-year career for Renna at SJI, which will come to an end on Aug. 3, when he officially retires.
Renna will be succeeded by Donald “Blue” Jenkins, a 30-year industry veteran who joins SJI from AltaGas Ltd., where he was Executive Vice President of AltaGas and President, Utilities of the Company and President of AtlaGas’s natural gas subsidiary, Washington Gas.
Renna said he is proud of all that has been accomplished during his tenure — but, like the ultimate leader, he repeatedly stressed that it was a team effort, especially during the recent years, noting the efforts of Melissa Orsen (SVP and Chief Administrative Officer, SJI), Nick DiRocco (SJI’s VP of Rates and Regulatory Affairs) and Krystle Straus, SJI’s VP of Corporate Communications.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about all the great work that Melissa, Nick, Krystle and so many others did to effectively rebrand the company, gain that internal support and energy behind where we were going strategically, gain the confidence of the investment community,” he said.
Renna admits the final years have been challenging, as so many people who know so little about the industry have had so much to say.
In a wide-ranging conversation with BINJE, he pushed back on a narrative he says persists even among the legislators who regulate utilities — that companies like his benefit when energy bills spike — and weighed in on where he thinks New Jersey’s energy future is headed, from data centers to nuclear power.
He also gave some insights into what is next for him.
Here’s a look at that conversation, edited slightly for space and clarity.
BINJE: Let’s start with some of the biggest moves under your leadership. The Elizabethtown Gas acquisition brought North and South Jersey utility operations under one company for the first time. What did that actually take, beyond the deal itself?
RENNA: We doubled down and acquired Elizabethtown, brought Elizabethtown back under New Jersey ownership. We blended two companies, and while they are in the same state, North and South Jersey are very different.
I think this was a tremendous success story, a selfless approach where we took the best of both systems.
BINJE: SJI also has been a huge leader in renewable energy. Your renewable natural gas platform that’s become one of the largest in the country. How does that fit into the picture?
RENNA: We’re one of the, if not the largest, or will be one of the largest, producers of renewable natural gas in the entire country. There’s the ACUA Renewable Natural Gas plant in Egg Harbor and up north we’re developing the Linden Renewable Energy Project, which SJI has said will be the largest RNG facility in North America once operational.
BINJE: All of this will help the environment and, hopefully, help costs. You’ve talked about how there’s a perception problem around utility bills — that people think companies like SJI are the ones benefiting when prices spike. Where does that come from, and how do you push back on it?
RENNA: There’s this assumption that we’re somehow benefiting from these cost increases. We’re not. On the electric side, it’s the generation — it’s the pass through. PSEG and Atlantic City Electric aren’t benefiting from that pass through, no more than we benefit when gas prices go up to a hundred dollars during a cold spell. We just don’t. It’s a pure pass through, and we do our best to mitigate that volatility, but weather obviously does impact supply and demand — it plays a key role in what prices are. But from a utility perspective, we get a return on the investments we make to make sure that your energy is delivered safely and reliably. It’s as simple as that. But people don’t understand that.
BINJE: Has that misunderstanding shown up in your conversations with lawmakers directly?
RENNA: It does. I would walk into politicians’ offices and they would be like, ‘Yeah, that’s — how do you guys get to cut costs? How do you get lower bills?’ And the reality of it is, unless you want utilities to stop investing, or unless you want the investment community to perceive an untenable risk in their capital, utilities need to keep investing. We need to keep modernizing, we need to keep making these reliability and safety investments — and never has that been more important than now.
BINJE: Let’s talk about the newest wrinkle on pricing: data centers and AI. There’s been a lot of frustration that the buildout is driving up costs. How do you see that playing out?
RENNA: I got to be honest, I don’t really understand the model in and of itself. They’re just spending enormous amounts of capital. To me, it’s a huge bet. And then you start to think about the energy that’s required. They’re writing these massive checks to either acquire generation from the utilities and or to build their own. I don’t know what that looks like. I just have no way of predicting what the future looks like.
BINJE: Does that uncertainty concern you, or is it more just an unanswered question at this point?
RENNA: It does start to feel like this is the next industrial revolution. I don’t mean to make this political, but I think it’s something that we would want to onshore, just for safety purposes and security purposes. And if New Jersey’s not serious about solving this generation deficit that we have, I think the smart money is that our neighboring states are going to pass us.
BINJE: Last question. You’ve got a full plate ahead of you between now and Aug. 3 — but what’s the one thing you most want people to understand about where you’re leaving SJI?
RENNA: I think it’s got a tremendously talented leadership team in place. I think the future for an infrastructure company like SJI is bright, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what SJI does in the coming 10-plus years. For me, the most important thing was getting the right leader in place, and I really believe we got that
