If you could ask Rob Snyder a question, what would you ask?

The good sport that he is, Stream Energy chairman Rob Snyder took to the camera to answer the questions… check out Rob’s responses!

You even read about him in many media publications.

But catch a glimpse of the Stream Energy chairman Rob Snyder that you might not have seen before. 

Stream Energy Anniversary: August 2004 (though we had the idea for Stream Energy in January 2004)
Birthday: February 12
Family: My wife Ana and four children
Birthtown: Ft. Wayne, Indiana
Industry Awards & Honors: 2008 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for the Southwest Region; American Business Award’s Chairman of the Year Award Finalist – 2010 and 2011
Favorite Movie: Schindler’s List
Favorite Team: Arsenal Football Club
Childhood Hero: Abraham Lincoln
Best childhood memory: Scoring a hat trick in the Final Four / National “Under 19” soccer tournament
Favorite Song: Not Great Men by Gang of Four, and Chet Baker’s live version of My Funny Valentine
Beatles or Stones? Stones
Steak or chicken? Chicken

What is your favorite thing about Stream Energy?
The camaraderie and the team atmosphere. 

What advice would you offer someone brand new coming to Stream Energy? 
Trust your co-workers.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be and why?
I’d like to have a lessened degree of obsessive compulsive disorder. 

How do you define a leader?
By the people who follow him. You can look to the quality of the people who are following in the footsteps of a leader and the enthusiasm in which they follow that leader – it speaks more to the leader’s attributes than the leader ever possibly could by himself.

Who influenced you the most growing up and made you into the person you are today?
My mom because she was very competitive, analytical and intelligent. She always emphasized intellectual competition in our family. Plus, there was a real focus on achievement in our house. Growing up, my mom had the greatest effect on me.

What did you want to be when you grew up? 
An astronaut.

Stream Energy, the largest network marketer of energy in the world, is taking the next step in our ongoing commitment to Captain Hope’s Kids, a charitable organization which meets the critical needs of homeless children.

As previously announced, we have launched an online webpage that allows our friends to make a direct donation to this worthy charity, as part of our campaign called “A Big Difference Starts Small.”

Participation is very easy. Simply visit the online webpage where you can elect to make a charitable donation in the amount of your choosing.

“We are very proud to draw deserved attention to Captain Hope’s Kids, which in 2009 touched the lives of 32,000 children from homeless families,” said Stream Energy Chairman Rob Snyder. “Families with children make up 47 percent of the homeless population in the Dallas metropolitan area. Captain Hope’s Kids provides needed goods and services to these unfortunates – and Stream Energy is going to help.”

Stream Energy, a deregulated energy services provider founded by chairman Rob Snyder, serves customers in Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Maryland and has been recognized for its outstanding customer service.

Stream Energy currently offers deregulated energy to four states. One of the reasons for its success is its nearly impeccable customer care and service.  The company is easy to reach if you ever have a question about its services, or your bill, or just for information.

At Stream Energy, the goal is to make sure that customers are treated with the utmost care and provided with world-class service.  The company’s webpage offers a facts and questions section, how to contact Stream Energy in an emergency, payment options and questions and answers about energy services offered.

Stream Energy’s Customer Service is always polite, professional and knowledgeable.  The company puts a premium on service, because it understands who the boss is – namely, you, the customer.

The company prides itself on a staff of great listeners who take the time to identify what the customer needs by asking the right questions and listening to the answers.  Stream Energy’s customers receive undivided attention and are greatly appreciated. 

If a customer needs systems explained, Stream Energy will explain it. The company will not direct you to another site. It wants all the customers to understand what they are receiving from Stream Energy.

Additionally, the company says “yes” as often as possible.  It is always looking for ways to help customers.  When you have a request, Stream Energy will do everything in its power to honor that request and come up with a fair resolution.

At Stream Energy, customers are the number one priority.  The company is an award-winning team who intends on continuing to improve in all areas.

A former British Caribbean Colony’s parliament was attempting to create efficiency by changing old policies. The fact that the populace still drove on the left side of the road, an old British holdover methodology, was brought up. The financial argument was that American cars were cheaper and that shipping from a geographically closer manufacturer, like those in the US, would also be much cheaper than the alternative. Another faction stated that they thought that a change like that was a large endeavor and should be phased in slowly. The wisest of the wise agreed and suggested that the phase-in should start with the semi-trucks.

Multiple accidents ensued.

Needless to say, even when there is no other way to do it, I don’t like any phase-in methods. And, in association with AMI, I see a variety of methods where the cart is being placed before the…semi-truck. Yes, mistakes and disconnects are abundant. This paradigm shift is feeling like a series of small earthquakes.

My resume shows that I have originated, built and operated power plants … supervised grid operations at the distribution, high voltage and extra high voltage levels … designed and implemented interchange scheduling and energy accounting systems … and even participated in the start-up of companies like Calpine Power Services Company and the Automated Power Exchange, not to mention my latest project, Stream Energy. I spent my first 20 years in the industry at the Salt River Project, Arizona’s second largest electrical utility.

Concern about the ultimate consumer is something that I am experiencing for the first time in my “almost” 38 year electricity career. I have always been on the generation, grid operations and market design side of the business and usually saw the consumer sector as a huge energy eating amoeba. I joined Stream Energy in 2004 as the wholesale supply director, never even thinking twice about the ever-present amoeba that we were serving. After building the supply procurement department at Stream Energy, I hired a new director as my replacement, who is much more intelligent than I am, and then moved into my current position. My title actually has very little to do with my duties to my Stream Energy partners. What I am expected to do is to constantly be looking in all directions, especially forward, and to keep the ship from hitting icebergs or running into sand bars. I look for opportunities and pitfalls, study how other companies are handling the changes and opportunities and generally read every industry news rag daily and discuss it with other energy professionals in my personal network. Stream Energy’s chairman Rob Snyder always seems to feel better if he never hears from me … the assumption being that there are no icebergs or sandbars in our immediate future.

I was asked to do a comparison between ERCOT and PJM as to what smart grid issues affect a retail electricity provider operating in a deregulated market. But, I need to explain more about what history has shown us, and then delve into my own fantasies about what the future holds before I can talk about what the present offers a company like Stream Energy.

I have become acutely aware of the consumer and the individual opportunity that our customers are going to have as they become players in the energy markets instead of captives of the system. Currently, the consumer has a choice of suppliers and a choice of several packaged products in the states in which we do business. But that is the tip of the proverbial iceberg. For the retail electric provider, ownership of the customer relationship will be the most important aspect of our business in the future.

Let me get historical and take a look backwards.

Mark Burlingame asked me this question, and then published my answer in anticipation of the SmartGridPoint seminar. “Has deregulation lived up to its promise of lower prices and innovative products”? My answer to that question was a question … ”Who made that promise?” If you read my whole answer, forgive me, but I want to address it again. Simply stated, regulation is a surrogate for competition. The practice of governments in capitalist countries is to protect consumers from natural monopolies by imposing regulatory constraints. Electricity utilities were deemed natural monopolies in the “post-Thomas Edison Era” after the short stint in the beginning where electricity supply competition thrived, where several electricity companies would arrive and compete for customers in a city and eventually be consolidated into a single company. With the help of anti-trust laws that were relatively new, the governments imposed a regulatory compact on these natural monopolies as competition gave way to consolidation.

Regulation was needed until technology paved the way for competition to be reinstated by dissolving the regulatory compacts with those parts of the industry that could be pushed into a competitive market, i.e. generation and customer service (with the wires companies, still being natural monopolies, remaining in the regulatory compact and acting as a common carrier of the product). So, what is happening is a return to competition after years of regulation. Technology, in the form of computers, arrived and now we see the capitalistic balance being restored. So, the surrogate is being set aside.  Competition is being restored. Why? Because there is a natural balance that unconstrained competition creates that is the basis of our capitalistic economy. Bankruptcy is not a bad thing in our economy; it is a “survival of the fittest” tool to keep our economy strong and pure. Almost all of the naysayers in our sector are not saying that competition is bad; they are saying that we still live in a constrained energy economy where the largest players can manipulate the markets for corporate gain and history has shown these naysayers to be, at least, partially correct. The rudimentary tool that economists use to determine a constrained competitive market is called the HHI Index (Herfindahl-Hirschman Index). The simple equation is to take all of the market sector participant’s market shares, square those numbers and then add up all the resulting products. So, if you have 10 generation companies serving a region, and they all have a 10% market share, the sum of the squares would be 1000. The HHI says any sum less than 1600 is a non-constrained market and that no single participant should be able to artificially set market prices. In Texas, when the market deregulated, the largest generator company had an approximate 35% share, followed by a generator company with an approximate 20% share. Just these two companies created 1625 points on the HHI which determined that ERCOT was a constrained market. True competition could not occur without extreme market monitoring and penalties for market manipulation; and still, there is some manipulation that falls within an acceptable range, even for the market monitor and market participants. But, in my humble opinion, I believe that our market monitoring systems are getting better, and that the economic benefits of competition far exceed the cost of the manipulation.

Today our friends at Captain Hope’s Kids launched an “Awareness Boom” to help spread awareness about the plight of homeless children in North Texas.

Stream Energy is a committed supporter of Captain Hope’s Kids, and we are pleased to help promote today’s Awareness Boom as part of our ongoing support campaign called “A Big Difference Starts Small,” which Stream Energy Chairman Rob Snyder ushered in on New Year’s Eve.

But we need the help of our employees, customers and Ignite Associates.

As part of this effort, we have created an online webpage that allows our community to make a direct donation to this worthy charity.

Another thing we’re doing to help Captain Hope’s Kids is through the sale of Ignite-branded license plates via the state of Texas. For every Ignite-branded license plate sold, a portion of the revenues is given to Captain Hope’s Kids. Stream Energy and Ignite will not receive any revenue from the sale of these plates.

As Rob has said previously, “We are very proud to draw deserved attention to Captain Hope’s Kids, which in 2009 touched the lives of 32,000 children from homeless families. Families with children make up 47 percent of the homeless population in the Dallas metropolitan area. Captain Hope’s Kids provides needed goods and services to these unfortunates – and Stream Energy is going to help.”

Anything you can do to help us make today’s Awareness Boom a success is greatly appreciated. Please spread the word and make a donation today.

This past weekend, it was Stream Energy’s privilege to host an Easter Egg Hunt for children served by Captain Hope’s Kids.

As you may know, Stream Energy has been a corporate supporter of Captain Hope’s Kids (CHK) for several years now. During the 2010 holiday season, Stream Energy Chairman Rob Snyder kicked off our “A Big Difference Starts Small” campaign with a series of commercials which highlighted the good work done by CHK in meeting the needs of homeless children in the North Texas area.

As part of our ongoing commitment to CHK, we invited many of the children helped by CHK and their families to join Stream Energy employees and our own children at Sandy Lake Park on Saturday, April 2, for an egg hunt, a visit from the Easter Bunny, lunch and more.

As a Stream Energy employee, I can attest that having the opportunity to meet these children who we’ve supported through various initiatives, and being allowed to participate in their lives for part of a weekend, helped us appreciate to an even greater extent the value of doing something good for others.   

I asked several of my fellow employees who helped put on this event what they thought, and here is what they had to say:

 “I think it was a huge success, and I think everyone had a great time. The kids enjoyed the hunt and they really enjoyed finding money in some of their eggs. Plus, the employees and their families had a good time as well.” – Meka Moore, Loyalty – Quality Assurance

“This event is now classified as my favorite Captain Hope’s Kids event because I got to spend some time with the kids. They were adorable! I originally thought they would be shy or withdrawn, but from the moment they bounced off that bus, they were there to have a good time. I LOVED IT!” – Joanna McQuien, Sr. Manager, IA Compliance & Ad Approval

“I believe that whether you were there on your own or with your little ones it was a lot of fun and truly eye-opening. It is one thing to know that you are providing diapers, Christmas toys or stuffing 2,000 eggs for kids, but to actually see their little faces with huge smiles and grateful parents is another thing. I look forward to the next time Stream Energy can plan another event with Captain Hope’s Kids.” – Zhila Garza, Business Analyst II

“The Easter Egg Hunt was such a great experience for everyone involved. It allowed the employees of Stream Energy to meet the wonderful children that benefit from Captain Hope’s Kids. Getting to see the children and see that we really are making a difference in their lives is an experience that is very uplifting and humbling. It makes all the time and effort given to support Captain Hope’s Kids very well worth it.” – Brian Hale, Internet Communications Editor

“Words can’t express what we experienced on this day. Yes we’ve been very successful with the toy drives and the diaper drive but to see the kids of Captain Hope’s run, play and laugh was truly priceless.” – Gayrelyn Miller, Front Desk Coordinator

Stream Energy would like to especially thank two of our vendor partners for helping us put on this Easter Egg Hunt. Our friends at Bob Lilly Professional Promotions were kind enough to print and donate commemorative T-shirts for the occasion, and our friends at Impact Printing were gracious in supplying commemorative bags for the children to use in gathering Easter eggs.

At Stream Energy yesterday, our Chairman Rob Snyder shared with our management team a few pieces of interesting news to hit the web. I thought that our consumers and the folks who follow us might be interested in these news items.

There has been a fair amount of debate over the years in Texas by a variety of parties on whether or not energy deregulation is best for consumers. Having been a part of one of the leading electric retailers in Texas for over six years now (i.e Stream Energy), I’ve been privileged to witness the evolution of deregulation firsthand.

Reflecting upon the report that appeared in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram yesterday – Electricity deregulation paying off for Texans – it is gratifying to learn that third-party industry watchers are coming to the conclusion that energy deregulation is a success.

Now when you couple the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram report with the news that complaints to Texas PUC fell 28% in 2010, as reported by Restructuring Today, you can draw the conclusion that consumers are in fact receiving the benefits that energy deregulation promised – namely, competitive pricing, greater options and improved service quality.

Today at Stream Energy, we launched a new initiative – members of the firm’s executive team, from Chairman Rob Snyder on down, are taking shifts in Customer Service, answering phone calls from our customers.

The reasons why we’re doing this are simple: 1) we want to interact with our customers, answer their questions and help them with their energy service, so we get direct feedback on their needs; 2) we want to demonstrate to our team mates in Customer Service that we appreciate them and the work they do day in and day out to take care of the people who have selected Stream Energy for their families’ energy needs.

The initiative is straightforward enough: over the course of the next several weeks, two members of the executive team will spend three hours on the phones on their assigned day. Each day, a new pair of executives will take a shift. To make sure that everything runs smoothly and that our customers receive optimal care, each executive is being paired with a Customer Service agent.

Today, our Senior Director of Human Resources Deanna Shelton and I had the privilege of taking the first shift. 

To be totally honest, I was a little nervous but my agent partner, Veronica, made the whole process easy on me and was an immense help. For the first 30 minutes, she answered the calls and I listened in, and then it was my turn to talk to customers. It was a lot of fun – the customers were gracious, and the materials we had to work with were a big help. But most of all, I was fortunate to have Veronica who answered my questions and anchored the computer process (which quite frankly is a lot more involved than you may think). I can tell you that Veronica is a pro and did an outstanding job!

The part that I enjoyed the most about my shift was actually talking with the customers and getting to know them on a first-name basis (albeit briefly). The whole experience was very enlightening, and I give credit where credit is due – to Veronica (and the whole Customer Service gang).

I asked Deanna Shelton what she thought about her shift, and she told me, “My experience as a Customer Operations Agent went very well today due to the superpowers of my shift buddy, Andrea, who happens to be one of our best agents! For me, the experience validated what I’ve known for over five years now – our agents have the hardest job here, and thankfully we have folks like Andrea providing our customers with great service!”

I totally agree with Deanna’s assessment. It was great to understand what our customers experience when they call in for assistance, and it was also wonderful to walk in the shoes of our Customer Service Agents and better understand what their days are like. I’d gladly do it again.

This little thing that we like to call “The Stream Experiment” has been going strong now for six years. During that time, we have achieved an astounding level of growth in the energy industry and have catapulted from just a few guys with laptop computers and BIG ambitions to one of the largest retail energy providers in Texas.

How did we do it?

There are many ways to answer that. One thing that may not be obvious to someone looking in from the outside, however, is what I would have to characterize as perhaps the most unique work environment in my professional career.

My favorite thing about Stream Energy is living up to the culture we established. This firm was started as a place and culture that fosters and encourages individuals to create great things from vision and drive. It works optimally when everyone collectively believes and gets involved.

The way we’ve done that and continue to do that is through a set of principles that were formulated by Stream Energy Chairman Rob Snyder called The Four Mantras:

1. Be transparent – be fair and equitable in all your dealings with customers, employees and Associates. And if you make a mistake, own it and ask for help.
2. Take out the panic – naturally, panic is many times the first reaction to a new challenge. So remove it from the equation so you can focus clearly on the task at hand.
3. Work the problem – A challenge won’t resolve itself or simply go away. Buckle down, attack it head on, and again don’t be afraid to ask for help.
4. Best idea wins – Encourage creative thinking from everyone. No one has a monopoly on good ideas; they can come from anyone on the team. Put egos aside and choose the course of action that’s best for the team and our customers.

Now, we have an unspoken fifth mantra – Wash some feet. This one goes to the heart of what we aspire to be as an organization – namely, a team of servant leaders. When we put the needs and cares of other people before our own self interests, it is amazing what we accomplish. Time and again I am struck by stories in our office and out in our Ignite sales field of individuals who go above and beyond to help someone in need.

The Four Mantras (plus One) really provide a sense of direction to our firm. Our employees know that we are trying to do something more noteworthy than simply drive the bottom line – we’re imbuing our efforts with purpose, with a zeal for improving our interactions with each other and providing our customers the best possible experience.

I give Rob Snyder lots of credit for creating the Mantras, because they all build on each other in simple yet interdependent fashion. They really do. Each one is important. Also, they all funnel down to treating others as you would like to be treated. In addition, if you have a HEALTHY respect for yourself, you will most likely have a healthy respect for others.

We’ve been asking our employees their thoughts on the Mantras, and I’d like to share some of the comments they came back with.

Of the Stream Energy Mantras, which one is your favorite and why?

I like Best Idea Wins. It lets everyone know they are being heard and that they have a voice in the firm, no matter what position they hold. – Gretchen Stealey, Associate Support Representative

Wash Some Feet would be the most relevant to me because I have always been taught to treat others the way you wish to be treated. I am no better than anyone else, and I am always learning new things from the people around me. I can’t imagine refusing a task because I felt it was beneath me to help out another person. – Allison Johnston, Commercial Sales Executive

Be Transparent. I think everything else works itself out. Working the same problem in parallel paths and not sharing information is doing double the work. I think transparency is the best thing. If people are transparent and share information, the efficiency level goes up. – Mike Rowley, Director of Market Research

Wash Some Feet. Be kind to everyone around you. – Karina Moreno, Customer Loyalty Analyst

I like Best Idea Wins because it challenges the mind and keeps people excited about coming to work. – Tommy Hall, Commercial Client Services

I like Wash Some Feet. I think everyone at Stream Energy really wants to take care of each other. – Jim Rafferty, Associate Support Representative

It’s a tie between Best Idea Wins and Wash Some Feet. I’d give the same advice to a Stream Energy veteran that I’d give someone new. We, as a group, need to listen to the team. The leadership team looks to the employee family to step up, be vocal and be the creative minds we know them to be. From my perspective, servant leadership is about clearing obstacles so our teams can look behind them and be proud of the path they left behind. – Matt McGaughey, Managing Director – Information Technology

Wash Some Feet, because it’s most important to lead by example. – Mike Jones, Senior Manager of Associate Support

I really like Be Transparent because in the type of environment and markets we are in, you have to be ready for challenges. You have to be transparent in your work to make sure everything gets done. – John Viquez, Manager of Treasury Remittance

Wash Some Feet because I love the Christian undertone. I consider myself a leader but my style is servant leadership so it resonates with me. It’s all about the other people and making life better for other folks, making them happy, and trying to help out and make the little things easier, so, I love Wash Some Feet. – Greg Martin, Director of New Market Implementation

I really like Take Out the Panic and Be Transparent. However, I think my favorite is Wash Some Feet because I really believe in that. I think it’s a critical part for a good team to work well with each other. – George Nemer, Director of IT Infrastructure Operations

The fifth Mantra (Wash Some Feet) is the one that resonates with me the most because it demands our attention to serving and supporting each other on a daily basis. – Deanna Shelton, Senior Director of Human Resources