Fran Glover Forehand, Georgia Power’s East Region Vice President has a passion for talent development, and with more than 23 years at Southern Company, Georgia Power’s parent company, Forehand considers it the most important part of her job.

She has held her new position since April, replacing Truitt Eavenson, who is now vice president of governmental and regulatory affairs at Georgia Power’s Atlanta headquarters. The East Region serves more than 155,000 customers in Augusta and its surrounding communities.

“I have been blessed to always be surrounded by an amazing team,” said Forehand. “These employees have career aspirations, and the thing I find most compelling about my role is helping them reach their career goals.”

One of Forehand’s best pieces of advice is for future engineers to work as interns or co-op students in their field of interest.

“It’s very important that young engineers get their core operations experience in the field in order to learn the business at the ground level. Once they gain that valuable experience, they can build on it and develop a more flexible career,” she said.

Forehand’s life experience has shaped who she is and how she cares about her employees.

“I had an amazingly supportive family, but we had our economic struggles,” Forehand said. “My parents were incredibly hard workers and were proud of their ability as West Alabama farmers to provide their kids with a better life. Mother had an 8^th grade education and daddy a 9^th, but they were smart and made things work; however, as anyone who knows about farming can tell you, it was a tough existence.”

From those days and nights of working the soil and raising their family, Forehand’s parents gave their children something more important than money; they gave them tenacity.

“I have three older sisters who are also engineers and one brother who is a scientist – all of us from that small farming community where you had to make your luck,” said Forehand. “Mother even went on at 60 years old to earn her nursing degree! The lessons my parents gave us about hard work and the desire to undertake new challenges are what got us to our goals, and I can think of no greater calling than to return the favor to these young people coming up through Georgia Power.”

Forehand advises young engineers to take a holistic approach to their careers.

“Once you complete the engineering credentials and experience, you can begin to move into the external affairs and customer service portions of our business,” said Forehand. “That way you really learn more about the ‘whys’ behind what truly goes into the decisions we make as a company. You come to understand the business drivers.”

Forehand believes it is one thing to understand the technical phases of the business, but it’s quite another to understand the business reasons behind why decisions that are made. 

“This is where the technical degree, complemented with the MBA, really serves to help round out our employees,” she said.

Her many years at Southern Company have influenced Forehand’s leadership style. 

“I believe in a servant-leadership style,” she said. “The reason this has been so special to me is that I understand and appreciate that having leadership responsibility is an honor and a privilege, and it is not about me. My goal is to create a pathway for people to visualize success, and then the employees will make it happen. True leadership is more about developing others to perform at their highest potential.”

Forehand says the more she empowers her team and provides the opportunity and tools for them to make the decisions, the better results she sees.

“I’m thrilled to work with employees, mentoring them to succeed in their personal and career goals by strategically stepping up the corporate ladder. I have been blessed with having many mentors throughout my lifetime – from my parents, to my siblings and the people I’ve been blessed to work with at Southern Company and Georgia Power, so it’s important for me to develop and encourage others to achieve their desires in life.

“When an employee reaches their first goal, they say, ‘This is what we’ve been working on. We got there, and I appreciate the help.’ Nothing gives me greater joy,” she said.

Forehand began her career at Alabama Power in 1991 as an engineering co-op student and later served as an engineer in Distribution.

Since joining Georgia Power in 1996, Forehand has served in various leadership roles, in the transmission organization, with increasing responsibility for maintaining substation and transmission line facilities throughout the metro and non-metro areas, including Atlanta, Augusta, Macon and Columbus. She also served as the manager of the statewide project management team responsible for overseeing transmission construction projects in excess of $350M annually. 

Prior to her appointment as East Regional vice president, Forehand was the Metro North Region manager, overseeing power operations in Gwinnett, Forsyth, north Fulton and DeKalb counties. Before that, she was in charge of land acquisition for the company, responsible for securing property rights for the placement of distribution, transmission and generation facilities statewide.

Forehand holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Alabama and an MBA from Augusta State University.