City Hires New Director of Public Utilities

Charles BauschardThe City of New Bern announces the hiring of Charles Bauschard as its new Director of Public Utilities.  Charles comes from Coldwater, Michigan where he was employed with the Coldwater Board of Public Utilities as Director of Technical Services and Electric Operations since November 2003.  In this position, he managed the electric distribution, service, generation, telecom and engineering departments.

The City reviewed numerous resumes and assessed several qualified candidates for the position.  Mr. Bauschard stood out with his leadership and engineering skills, capital improvement and rate planning experience, and his development and oversight of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI).  He begins his new position as the City of New Bern continues implementation of AMI, which will ultimately provide two-way communication between a customer’s meter and the utility provider.  AMI will allow the City to serve its customers more efficiently by providing them with real-time information on energy consumption and cost.  It will save the City time and resources involved in utility maintenance, meter reading, and outage reporting.  New Bern’s AMI implementation began in 2013 and should be complete by the end of this year.

Charles will oversee a utilities department that supplies electric to more than 21,400 residential and commercial customers and water to more than 35,000 customers in the areas of New Bern, Trent Woods, and Highway 70 East towards Havelock.  “We’re excited to welcome Mr. Bauschard to New Bern and to have him join our team,” said Mark Stephens, City Manager.  “He will be an asset to the city as New Bern continues to grow as a travel, professional, and relocation destination.”

Charles Bauschard graduated from Gannon University in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering.  His first day with the City of New Bern is today, Tuesday, May 29th.  His annual salary is $125,000.

Submitted by: Colleen Roberts, Public Information Officer, City of New Bern