Dave Berg Consulting

Dave Berg Consulting: Consulting, community, and care for 40+ years

For Dave Berg, it all began with a love of math. “It was always the subject I enjoyed the most and did the best in. I was in math competitions when I was in high school.” When Dave entered college, he switched from being a pharmacy major to majoring in electrical engineering, the type more oriented towards the power industry. Thus began 40+ years of providing professional consulting services to utilities.

“What I always liked was combining the engineering side of things with the financial,” says Dave. Dave has been able to develop this interest throughout his career, first with Burns & McDonnell in Kansas City, Missouri. “While I was there for four years, I got broad experience across many different things,” said Dave. “I was not called to be a design engineer; I’m a study engineer. At the time, my wife and I were plotting our return to the Upper Midwest. Our first two children were born in Kansas City, and then we took a job with R.W. Beck in Minneapolis in 1988.”

For 25 years, Dave worked for R.W. Beck, which was well known in the public power world. “I did a lot of rate work and a lot of municipal bond financing work. What I always liked was the combination of the engineering with the financial, making that combination work.”

Dave’s experience over the years has included utility cost-of-service and rate design, power generation feasibility studies, power supply planning analyses, energy supply contract negotiations, strategic planning, engineer reports in support of bond financings, and utility education courses.

Dave continued his consulting work as a merger turned R.W. Beck into SAIC, and through many different, interesting projects. “In 2012, I decided to hang out my own shingle,” says Dave, and Dave Berg Consulting was born. Dave’s firm aids utilities in the electric, water, natural gas, wastewater, and steam/heat areas.

The municipal utility world is important to Dave. “Ninety-eight percent of my work is with municipal utilities. I really like working with municipals—I am a one-person firm, so I work with a lot of small to medium-sized utilities. I enjoy the people, how they work, and I feel that I really connect with them.”

Dave estimates that he has worked with well over 100 different clients since Dave Berg Consulting opened its doors. “I am proud of having multiple clients that I have been working with for years and years and years,” says Dave. “Relationships are very important—and business development is all about relationships.”

Dave enjoys the challenge of working in a changing utility industry. “Early on, things were very different than they are now,” says Dave. “I am known for being in the rate world. When you look at things like rooftop solar, AMI metering, and electric vehicles, there are so many areas where technology has changed the way our industry operates. We have had to be more innovative in the rate world, having more specific kinds of rate applications.”

For instance, the installation of rooftop solar should be rate neutral for solar customers and non-solar customers alike. “You don’t want your non-solar customers subsidizing your solar customers. You want to do things that are protective for everyone and still fit inside of state statute,” says Dave.

He has also enjoyed working with Slayton, Minnesota as they work to form a new municipal utility. “Slayton is working towards the formation of a new municipal by buying out an investor owned utility,” says Dave. “Slayton had a vote that passed to allow for this endeavor.”

Dave has also been a long-time advocate of and participant in MMUA. “I have been very involved with MMUA and its members since 1988,” says Dave. I’ve gotten to know so many people through the years—when I go to MMUA meetings, I see so many people I know.” Dave also enjoys his participation in the MMUA Summer Conference as an attendee and as a speaker. “I am often a speaker…and I do enjoy it!”

Dave gives back by going on annual mission trips through his church. In the last 20 years, he has visited sites in need within the United States, Mexico, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. “It is an experience I really love,” says Dave. While on site, the team does construction work to help improve the local community. “I get to work with my hands; it is a fulfilling thing,” says Dave. He also enjoys volunteering at a senior living facility in Rosemount, spending time with people from his parents’ generation.

In his free time, Dave enjoys spending time with his four adult children and seven grandchildren. He also finds it enjoyable doing construction work at his children’s homes.

As for retirement, Dave has this to say. “I’m at an age where people ask if I am going to retire, and I am saying not yet!” For that, and for all of Dave’s work over the years, Minnesota’s municipal utilities can be grateful.