 Robert Krause
Self Employed
Public Utility Consultant
Fort Worth, TX
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 B.S. -
Electrical Engineering, Brigham Young University
M.S. - Business
Administration, Arizona State University |
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Public Utility
Consultant, acting as the expert witness either supporting the
power company or testifying against them when the company
applies for a rate increase to the Public Utility Commission. |
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"Consulting is
rewarding for those who find their niche, but it is neither as
glamorous as some like to think nor the right type of work for
everybody." |
 
"As a consultant, I quite often have people tell me, oh what a wonderful
life that must be. You have all this freedom. You have all this time and
you're your own boss. I've found though that as a consultant I'm not my
own boss, I've always got a client who is my boss. In fact, quite often,
I've got four or five bosses at one time. And my job as a consultant is to
try and satisfy them all."
Robert Krause is a public utility consultant. After working for a number
of years for electrical power companies and getting an MBA, he became a
consultant on electrical rates. Krause points out that consulting is
rewarding for those who find their niche, but it is neither as glamorous
as some like to think nor the right type of work for everybody.
Consultants are experts in a field who are hired temporarily to solve
problems. They work from a home office, where they have the equipment
necessary to do their work a computer, fax machine, Internet access,
answering machine, copier. That means consultants do all of their own
work. "They fill out their own invoices; they do their own accounting.
They even take out the garbage."
Although they spend some time meeting with clients, most is spent alone
"doing all the grunt work." Krause explains, "There's a lot of analysis
involved. A lot of preparation. A lot of research that has to be done,
quite often, in front of a computer, over the Internet or on location some
place. Quite often libraries of a public utility commission." Once the
research is finished, "you are the one that does all the spreadsheets, all
the calculations. You prepare your report. You do the typing."
An important part of the job is networking. Networking is a way of getting
information needed for a particular assignment. It is a way of making
contacts and "staying abreast of what's happening and who's going to need
you next." Krause believes that "attendance at IEEE conferences or any
conference is always an opportunity for networking. Always. What you want
to do, again, is to make contact with people in other areas. Contacts
really become friends." When those friends need a consultant "they will
think of you."
But Krause cautions that an engineer must have the right temperament to
become a consultant. "If you've been an engineer in management, who's had
a staff under you, and you've been able to throw out assignments, and they
take care of all the grunt work -- or if you don't like the detail -- you
probably will not do well as a consultant." Consulting can also mean
financial instability. "Consulting is basically a feast-or-famine
operation. When you've got a contract going, you can make very good money.
When your contract comes to an end, you're laid off. If you're not
continually marketing yourself, you reach a point when a contract ends and
there's nothing lined up to start. During those down times, you have to
watch your budget very, very carefully."
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