Her Story
About Tawana
I started in the utility industry back in 2007 when I was attending grad school in Columbia, South Carolina. It began as just a part-time job placement while I was working on my master's degree in integrated marketing communication. I started out on the customer service level with face-to-face interaction with customers in the local business offices, and then I began to learn more about the company. My whole background is in communications, but it just happened through building professional relationships and learning more about the utility industry. I had opportunities to do some things in the community with our philanthropy department and communications department, and then around my 8th year at the company, I had an opportunity to shadow with the customer assistance department. Eventually, a posting opened in Charleston, South Carolina, where I'm from, so I relocated back home. The journey started because I needed a job, but then it just expanded into a very humbling and fulfilling career. Now, as Supervisor of Customer Assistance Programs at Dominion Energy, I lead a team of six staff members who go out into the community and connect our utility customers with energy assistance as well as other human services. We've built a network of over 170 agency partners to ensure we can cross-promote their programs and help our utility customers avoid energy burdens and disconnections.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Tawana
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would tell her that you really have to come in this position with an open heart, an open mind, and exemplify empathy. And being able to relate to them. When I say relate to them, of course, everybody is raised differently, has different backgrounds and values, but we can't allow those different values to deteriorate how we further assist, because a lot of people that I assist day-to-day, we don't have the same political views, we aren't of the same race or ethnic backgrounds, but that's not important when I'm serving them, when I'm helping them, when I'm trying to avoid them from energy burdens, being disconnected. That doesn't matter at that time, so I want you all to come in here and just be focused on the matter at hand, but also do it with love, with care, and with empathy. And then the next thing would just be, you know, in this role, it's very hard sometimes to leave work at work and home at home, because I'm dealing with so many people of different backgrounds, and very, you know, sometimes very heartfelt situations, and I can't help but not go home and think about, you know, they mentioned to me not only that they're having issues paying their life bill, that they don't have any food, they don't have any medication. We do the best that we can to connect them with those resources, but sometimes it's just a quick little fix, so it's just sometimes hard to sleep at night and not think about those customers. So that's just one of the things is just try to separate the two, but still, when you are in that work mode, do the best you can to serve those customers.
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