IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2008 - 19

BY
JULIA C. KELLER

Lighting the Path
WANDA REDER POWERS IEEE PES

Leadership comes naturally to Wanda Reder, vice president of the Power Systems Services Division of S&C Electric Company, and the president of the IEEE's Power & Energy Society (PES). Reder grew up on a ranch in a small town in western South Dakota
and didn't really know what an engineer was. Though her father was mechanically oriented, she says her freshman high school algebra teacher put her on the engineering
path. "My teacher said to me, 'If I had to do it over again, I would.' And so that was the
beginning. I knew I was going into engineering."
After graduating with a class of 39 people, Reder traveled 400 miles from home to
South Dakota State University (SDSU) where she started her education in electrical
engineering. Although SDSU was the largest university in the state, Reder says she wasn't overwhelmed. "Even though I was a long way from home, I knew a lot of people
throughout the state already," she says in part because of her leadership role as South
Dakota's state 4-H president.
Through serving on the SDSU dean's advisory council, she met Lowell Endahl,
a leader in the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). Endahl
offered her the opportunity to work for a summer at NRECA's R&D division,
which was Reder's first entrée into power engineering.
"1800 Mass Ave.-that's a huge cultural change," Reder says of the experience of
working in NRECA's offices, located in Washington D.C.'s bustling Dupont Circle
area. "I would drive the car around with white knuckles. "I grew up in a place where a
handshake was all that was needed and people were very forthcoming," unlike in Washington, she says, where "you really had a hard time knowing the real person." Though
the experience was valuable, Reder longed for the Midwest.
After graduation, Reder worked for Northern States Power Company (NSP), a utility
company that provided energy to Minnesota and the Dakotas. Here, Reder moved
farther away from power generation, conversion, and delivery of power and began
working on projects to reduce the strain on the electric grid. "I really liked the idea of
conservation and load management, trying to integrate new technologies into the
industry," Reder says.
In the late 1980s, Minnesota had issued a mandate to get its energy consumption
under control, especially in homeowners' use of electricity for water heaters and air
conditioners, two of the largest drains on the electric grid. NSP had to "design rebates
and programs to make the appliances more efficient and encourage consumers to go
that route," says Reder.
In a company that had grown to make the list of S&P's 500 largest companies, Reder
saw management of a conservation initiative as a way to distinguish herself from the
pack. "At the time, I was the only female engineer on my team," Reder says. But that
wasn't enough to get her noticed. "You have to differentiate yourself and figure out how
to be in the game." Under Reder's leadership, NSP pushed her idea of implementing the
cycling of water heaters and air conditioners via radio control.

L
With all of the
new
technology
available,
Reder
acknowledges
that the PES is
at a pivitol point
in its history.
WANDA REDER

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWE.2008.930864
1942-065X/08/$25.00©2008IEEE

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