The Founders

Gary Groesch, consumer advocate
Alliance Founder Gary Groesch

by John Pope
Times-Picayune, November 12, 2002

Gary Groesch, an impassioned consumer advocate on energy issues and frequently a thorn in the side of government and utility officials, died Monday at Ochsner Clinic Foundation of pulmonary fibrosis. He was 50.

Mr. Groesch was co-founder and executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, a nonprofit organization started in 1985.

Among the organization’s achievements were a $144 million refund to New Orleans ratepayers, the scaling back of a proposed gas-rate increase from 18 percent to 2 percent, and creation of a fund to help people make their homes more energy-efficient and pay their utility bills.

Friends said Mr. Groesch was fascinated by the fine points of utility law, a topic others find mind-numbing.

“He just slurped it up with a big spoon,” said Micah Walker, the alliance’s program director.

His love of facts dated to his childhood in Springfield, Ill., said Betty Wisdom, a charter member of the alliance’s board and a close friend.

“He would go down to the public library on Saturday and look things up, and it continued ever since,” Wisdom said. “He had a devouring curiosity about the world.”

Mr. Groesch earned a bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of Illinois and was a carpenter before shifting to energy issues.

Mr. Groesch was an early opponent of the Waterford 3 nuclear power plant and led a successful referendum to return utility regulation to the New Orleans City Council.

In 1997, the Legislature appointed Mr. Groesch to a commission to study the effects of glocal climate change on Louisiana. A year later, he was named a director of a three-year project for the Ford Foundation that showed the compatibility of economic development and social justice.

Mr. Groesch received many honors for his work. Gov. Foster praised him in 1996 for helping create the state’s Energy Efficient Commercial Building Code, and the Greater New Orleans African Methodist Episcopal Ministerial Alliance gave him the Martin Luther King Award this year for his work on behalf of low-income ratepayers.

The Louisiana Environmental Action Network gave him an award for his work Saturday, but he was too ill to attend the ceremony.

In taking on the corporate and political establishment, “Gary was probably the most passionate person I’ve ever known,” Wisdom said. “When things went wrong, he minded it terribly, and he wanted to do what he could to put it right. Maybe he couldn’t, but he’d damn well try.”

Former Mayor Marc Morial agreed.

“He was tireless, vigorous and fearless,” Morial said. “His passion and fire on behalf of the electricity consumer in New Orleans made him a very important figure in the history of the city.”

Survivors include his companion, Karen Wimpelberg; his parents, Lubert and Lorene Groesch of Springfield; a brother, Glenn Groesch of Virgnia Beach, Va.; and a sister, Carole Jones of Moscow, Idaho.

A potluck memorial service will be held Sunday at 4 p.m. at Rock ‘n’ Bowl Cafe, 4135 S. Carrollton Ave.

Karen Wimpelberg leading a protest against the Little Gypsy conversion“Karen has served New Orleans and Louisiana ratepayers with uncommon passion and a keen understanding of both the technical and political aspects of electric utility regulation, and she will continue to lend meaningful insight and support to the regulatory work of the Alliance,” says Alliance Legal and Regulatory Affairs Director Jesse George. “I wish her well in her new capacity and hope that she might be able to work in some much needed rest and relaxation.”

Karen Wimpelberg was among the founders and long-time leaders of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, alongside her late partner Gary Groesch, Betty Wisdom and Tom Lowenburg. Karen has remained an active part of the organization since its founding in 1985, serving as a board member, board president, Regulatory Affairs Director. Additionally, she has carried a central leadership role within the organization since Hurricane Katrina. Karen has been a tireless advocate for the rights of utility customers, energy efficiency and progressive energy policies. The staff at the Alliance is grateful for her 24 years of service and mentoring as she passes the torch to the next generation.

Betty Wisdom and the Alliance

Betty Wisdom helped give birth to the Alliance for Affordable Energy. From 1983-1985 she chaired a League of Women Voters study group on whether the city should buy (municipalize) the utility company serving New Orleans, New Orleans Public Service Inc. (NOPSI), now called Entergy New Orleans . The League, along with a Blue-Ribbon City Council study committee came to the same consensus: that the city should buy the utility – as allowed by the 1922 franchise between the city and the utility company. It was hoped that having a utility company that was municipally owned (like Austin, Texas and Lafayette) would pave the way for more progressive, affordable and environmentally responsible energy policies. Advocates of buying out the utility also hoped to avoid New Orleanians being billed for 29% of the huge capital costs of the proposed multi-billion dollar construction of the Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Station in Mississippi. The utility rate hikes that would follow such a huge commitment would have been devastating to our residential customers, over 30% of whom were below poverty level. Betty, as chair of that nearly two-year long League study, became incensed at the unfairness of that proposal as well as the underhanded methods the utility company used to try to get approval of their plans.

Following that League of Women Voters consensus in early 1985, Betty and five other advocates for fair and affordable energy policy decided to start a non-profit that would monitor the issues and government processes around utility regulation and energy policy for New Orleans. Both the first meetings of these six founders and the first organizing meeting for the new organization, attended more than 50 people, were held in the double parlor of her small shot-gun home. The organizing meeting was so cramped that many sat on the floor or stood in doorways. It was in these meetings that the Alliance for Affordable Energy was born.

Betty was an important support for the Alliance. She served as chair of our first Advisory Committee and, as a guide and mentor, taught us how to navigate government offices and gave us entre to approach public officials who were making huge decisions affecting the whole city, which allowed us to educate them on energy policy issues. Her mantra: “Be firm but respectful and appreciative – even of differences, be patient – there is always a pendulum swing in what the public will demand or accept, listen well to elected officials as well as the public’s thoughts and concerns, learn Robert’s Rules of Order, and always be very sure of your facts.” She volunteered for us in the early years, even answering the phones on a certain day per month, as well as attending our events. She stayed on the board for 22 years, even after Katrina, when she was so saddened by the damage, loss and chaos surrounding her in her beloved city.

How can we ever thank Betty? We can keep up our twenty-four year effort to monitor corporate and government decisions around energy policy and empower the public to do so as well. That will allow her legacy to live on.

Betty Wisdom’s life and work

As well as an animal, plant and arts-for-all lover, Betty was an ardent civil rights activist. In 1960, she served as a board member of Save Our Schools (SOS), which was essentially formed out of members of the League of Women Voters of New Orleans. Betty and 24 other women, including Kit Senter, another Alliance Advisory Committee member, personally helped escort daily, to and from school, the white children from 12 families who were willing to keep their children in Frantz Elementary School in the 9th Ward, after Ruby Bridges, a first grade student (of the Norman Rockwell painting) was brought in as the first black student. These women received with phone threats and harassment, faced screaming crowds of white women both at their homes and the school and had their cars rocked by angry crowds. During many of these experiences New Orleans police stayed 100 yards away, leaning against their cars watching and laughing.

But the ‘SOS girls’ persisted. Betty, who had some independent income and a job with the school board, would send a long telegram daily to the New York Times, the Washington Post and a connection or two at the White House, describing the day’s events (telegrams were expensive, no fax machines then, much less computers) begging for President Kennedy to send the national guard. After nearly a month, he did. Betty lost her job at the school board which she later claimed as one of her proudest moments. But as a result of this one, successfully integrated, public school (the other school that attempted to integrate had lost every single white family immediately), New Orleans was forced to integrate all of its schools. In 1994 Oprah Winfrey recognized the Little Rock Seven, Ruby Bridges and the ‘SOS girls’ for their work toward integrating the nation’s public schools. Betty was very honored to have been included with those who she considered “the truly brave”.

Betty was President of the League of Women Voters twice, and served on every committee the League had to offer. She was named by President Lyndon Johnson to the Human Rights Commission, and served on four City Charter Commissions. Every mayor, starting with Moon Landrieu in the 1970’s, tried to amend the charter in order to align it with the 1952 version of the Louisiana Constitution. The Charter was finally amended in 1996 under Marc Morial. She was very patient! Betty served on the board of the ACLU, Agenda for Children, Amistad, and other civic minded organizations, like the Independent Women’s Organization (IWO), and she bequeathed her large personal library (many thousands of books) to Dillard University.

For over 50 years, Betty Wisdom served on the boards and advisory committees of a broad spectrum of arts and cultural organizations such as the New Orleans Ballet, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Orleans Opera, the Arts Council of New Orleans, etc., even sponsoring the training of several opera singers. Rather shy, Betty stayed very close to her various nieces and nephews and extended family and to a close circle of loving friends. But building miniature, exquisitely appointed and authentic doll houses which she then donated to charities for auctioning and donating children’s books, especially ones written by African American authors, (a very new genre starting in the late 1980’s) to local public schools and speaking to school children about her work in civil rights and building the zoo, were always her most joyful public experiences. In 1994, Betty received the Times Picayune Loving Cup for her lifetime of selfless volunteer work on behalf of her fellow New Orleanians. Betty was and always will be an inspiration.

– Alliance Founder Karen Wimpelberg