Korea Electrical Safety Corp. (KESCO) has turned to long-term efforts to realize its new safety management system of taking preventive measures to ensure sustainable growth, shifting from the hitherto post-disaster management regime of restoration. 

KESCO is also striving to make inroads into the global market by exploring future next-generation momentum behind sustainable growth, strengthening its capability and securing global competitiveness. The following are excerpts from an interview between NewsWorld and KESCO President Park Chul-gon in which he touched on KESCO’s mission, tasks, and future plans.

Question: As the CEO of an enterprise you seem to be engaged in responsibilities different from those you were tasked with while working at the Prime Minister’s Office. Will you give us your impressions?

Answer: I did state affairs from the big-picture perspective while working at the Prime Minister’s Office because I drafted policies that were to be implemented by related ministries and low-level organizations. I’m now carrying out micro-level and specific things related to people’s lives. Even though I’ ve experienced much change, it is a lot of fun. 

Q: You supposedly have your own philosophy on management since you served as a public servant for a long period of time. Please tell us about that.

A: I pondered what do I do and what look like in the future - all things including wealth, power, and honor seemed empty to me °™  when I was undergoing training for my job as a government official after passing the higher administrative examination. I then made up my mind not to compromise my principles. I have since put my fullest efforts into doing my work according to principles and without wavering and to revamp bad practices and culture. Even though everyone has his or her own different innate abilities, strenuousness and firm determination do matter. Efforts yield results and raise one’s own values. I’ve been endeavoring to set an example by going back to basics and remembering where I first began. 

Q: Could you please introduce our readers to KESCO?

A: Many people often confuse our company with Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO). KEPCO is a public entity for producing electricity, while KESCO is responsible for all duties related to the safety of power within buildings. Our company seems to be something like a general hospital charged with the safe use of electricity. We offer solutions to all problems concerning the use of electricity if you call about them. 

Q: Wasn’t your almost 30-year career with the Prime Minister’s Office as a public official outside of the electricity field?

A: In a word, you mean that I’m not an expert. That wisdom is based on our society’s biases and misunderstanding. The CEO’s duty is neither handling distribution boards in the field nor inspecting. I understand that managing a state organization and policies as a vice minister needs to be set in the same context of putting on the right track the public enterprise charged with the mission of protecting people’s lives and properties from electricity disasters. It is somewhat considered the extension of my administration career. I do not lack knowledge about electricity. Working officials at technology departments who came to teach the basics of electricity when I took office were surprised to find the level of my knowledge °™ something like writing as it comes to English learning. 

Q: Will you introduce your company’s major businesses?

A: In the long-term perspective, we endeavor to realize the new safety management system of taking preventive measures in order to ensure sustainable growth, shifting from the hitherto post-disaster management regime of restoration. KESCO also strives to make inroads into the global market by exploring future next-generation momentum behind sustainable growth, strengthening its capability and securing global competitiveness. 

I declared the company’s new vision of becoming an electricity safety leader that seeks to make customers happy and the workplace worthwhile on the occasion of 100 days in office during last year. The new vision indicates its determination to call for not just maintaining or repairing electricity facilities, but also directly developing new technology concerning electricity and playing leading roles in ensuring the safe application of new facilities and technologies at home and abroad to the daily life of everyone. It also demands going beyond meeting customers’ expectations and satisfaction.  

Q: Could you elaborate on your company’s focus on overseas business?

A: A foreign company was discovered to be struggling with the completion of a subcontract to conduct the safety of electricity facilities in a site in the United Arab Emirates despite a three-month delay. Our company came to the aid as a troubleshooter and they successfully made it in three months. A foreman was quoted as saying that it is a surprise that inspecting electricity, which is considered a nuisance in Korea, gave two companies a chance to jointly collaborate. We’ve been asked to form a consortium next time, and that case is an instance of demonstrating our company’s future potential to explore overseas markets. 

KESCO plans to execute such projects as precision safety inspection on generators and a few other facilities and the provision of education on the construction of electricity safety infrastructure. 

KESCO participants at an international conference on the safety of electricity in Mexico discovered new opportunities for KESCO, because underdeveloped and developing countries, including Mideast states, called for our help. Many firms from advanced countries build industrial infrastructure in developing countries, for which they find it increasingly difficult to ensure maintenance. 

Our company has a track record of success in localizing imported technologies and systems on our own, which I believe gives us a competitive edge. We plan to disseminate to developing countries precious experiences and technology we have accumulated and commercialize them °™ something like proliferating Hallyu (the Korean Wave) on electricity. 

Q: Tech-nological power is essential for gaining recognition abroad. I’ ve heard that a new testing method is in place. Can you give us more details?

A: KESCO’s Power On Inspection (POI) went into full service starting last July, proving its technological prowess. The testing method, done without cutting power, is the first such method at home or abroad. Our company began to study the technology in 2004 with the aim of meeting demands from such corporate customers as steelmakers, who find it difficult to undergo inspections involving power stoppages since they have to operate around the clock. The POI technology has been test-operated from 2005 until recently.

Inspecting 100 major industrial facilities with the POI technology will have an impact of saving 534 billion won in power stoppage costs, arousing an explosive response among clients. 

Q: Would you comment on the largest-ever power stoppage that hit the nation last September, the power cut in the Ulsan Petrochemical Complex, and the fire that broke out at the Boryeong Thermal Power Complex?

A: KEPCO and its subsidiary power companies are charged with generating, transmitting, and distributing electricity. Electricity producers are more likely to focus on efficiency rather than safety, while KESCO specializes only in safety. The largest-ever power stoppage in September 2011, caused by production-supply problems, had nothing to do with our company. Our regional operations were placed under an emergency footing to brace for the possible side effects of the power outage. Some people confused the two companies and blamed us for that. 

Q: Would you introduce KESCO’s “energy welfare” program?

A: KESCO established a legal basis for providing support to those in the low-income bracket who have broken electric equipment by amending related laws in 2007. The “Speed-call” system is in place to dispatch KESCO crews and take emergency steps to the underprivileged households suffering from such power problems as power cuts and short circuits. KESCO introduced the Speed-call system, taking its cue from people’s ordinary reporting of accidents by calling 119. Beneficiaries are asked to call 1588-7500 to receive the Speed-call services. KESCO strives to expand the number of beneficiaries, now limited to those protected under the Basic Living Security Act and others in need.

Roughly 2,700 executives and staff members from KESCO’s 60 branch offices across the nation participate in such volunteer activities as the “Green Home, Green Town Campaign” and “Habitat.” 

Q: Would you explain the so-called Blue-chip Personnel Selection System?

A: Upon taking office, I introduced the personnel selection system by taking a cue from the stock market in which blue-chip stocks are traded at higher prices and attract more purchasers. Under the system, each division chief is given the right to select team chiefs with whom he works, and each team chief could select his or her team members. The system is designed not only to explore “talents hidden in the mud” by breaking favoritism based on educational backgrounds and regionalism, but also to promote a corporate culture in which those who work hard can be given due rewards. I have climbed up to my current position by battling my way on my own.