The Leader and Execution ft. Paul Standen
ft. Paul Standen — TMU Class of ’02, PG&E
Date: Friday, October 23 at 2:30 p.m.
Location: Legacy Room (Rutherford Building)
Dress: Business Casual
Paul Standen graduated from TMU in 2002 with a degree in accounting and finance. He spent three years doing tax work at a large accounting firm in San Francisco, decided it wasn’t what he wanted to do long term, and took a job as a project controls analyst at PG&E.
Today, he oversees a contract and construction management organization of roughly 800 people and is currently on special assignment leading an Incident Management Team in San Francisco under significant public pressure.
During the California wildfires, when PG&E announced plans to bury thousands of miles of power lines in high-fire-risk areas, Paul was challenged to think through the crews, engineering capacity, production rates, permitting, and schedules it would take to complete the job. His work reached senior leadership, and Paul became the second employee on the newly formed undergrounding team.
PG&E runs thousands of projects at once across permitting, contractors, materials, safety, cost, and schedule. Paul will talk about what it takes to execute at that kind of scale by reverse-engineering problems, working backward from the goal, and managing through data rather than guesswork.
He’ll also talk about construction and project management as a career: a field that combines business, engineering, contracts, finance, scheduling, and field execution. It’s an area many students may never have considered, but one with real demand, significant responsibility, and strong earning potential.
Come ready with questions