Meet the Speaker: Lourdes Estrada-Salinero, Manager of Enterprise Continuous Improvement at Pacific Gas and Electric Company

Meet Lourdes Estrada-Salinero, Manager of Enterprise Continuous Improvement at Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Learn how she lives and breathes continuous improvement, loves to travel, and is one of the first continuous improvement practitioners in the United States.

Lourdes will share PG&E’s experience with change management and continuous improvement from the recent wildfire crises in its service territory at The 9th Change Management for Utilities Conference, September 23-24 and the 4th Process Excellence for Utilities Conference, September 25-26, 2019 in San Diego.

Q: Name, title, Company:

A: Lourdes Estrada-Salinero, Manager Enterprise Continuous Improvement, PG&E

Q: Family, hometown, where you live:

Lourdes Estrada-Salinero exploring Patagonia

A: Married for 31 years (to same guy), 2 grown kids, one is an Environmental and Structural Engineer, also at PG&E. The other is a Chemist, working on his masters in Chemical Engineering. Yes, they are geeks like Mom. Live in Alameda, Ca. Was born in Havana Cuba, but I consider NYC where I grew up and therefore my home town.

Q: Utility/Leadership experience:

A: Have been in the industry for over 30 years at three different Energy Companies (FP&L, Xcel, California ISO and PG&E). In Leadership for 30 years.

Q: What do you like to do when you’re not working? Hobbies?

A: Everything outdoors. I like backpacking off the grid, many times by myself.

Q: Notable achievements:

A:I am one of the first continuous improvement practitioners in the US. I was trained by the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers in 1986 as a statistical applications expert (kind of like a black belt.)

Q: Where do you see ‘Change Management and Process Excellence in Utilities’ in two-to-five years?

A: CI function integrated into the business, as opposed to a staff function. Moving away from very structured models such as DMAIC and becoming much more practical with the use of tools and analysis.

Q: Who are a couple of your role models (and why?)

A: Juran and Deming. They are the true fathers of quality, every thing to come after has been purely marketing i.e. lean, dmaic

Lourdes Estrada-Salinero visits the Great Pyramids of Egypt

Q: What is one of your biggest goals?

A: Travel every part of the world I have not been to yet. Live a year in Spain and Italy, and a year in South America.

Q: What’s the biggest misconception you run into in your role (or what people seem to think about Change Management & Continuous Improvement)?

A: That we are a pair of hands and process mappers.