FAB 50 THE ART OF BUSINESS
Business Journal
INSTINCT, TALENT THE HALLMARKS OF DREW DAVIES’ CAREER
Page 18
CELEBRATING 50 YEARS
YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY ACROSS NEBRASKA & BEYOND
MBJ.COM
VOLUME 52, No. 29
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JULY 10, 2026
Powering the Future
OPPD’S FERNANDEZ ON BUILDING FOR A SURGE IN DEMAND BY DAISY HUTZELL-RODMAN
When L. Javier Fernandez became president and CEO of the Omaha Public Power District on July 1, 2021, he had nine days to settle in before a record storm knocked out power across the service territory and put him in front of five television cameras. Standing at a lectern, he told the public to call OPPD’s 800 number to report outages. In 2021, OPPD had no reliable way to know which homes were dark. That press conference became a catalyst. Within months, Fernandez made one of his first major unilateral decisions: replace every meter in OPPD’s territory with advanced metering infrastructure capable of two-way communication with customers. The old meters, which required crews to drive past homes once a month to collect a single signal, were 20 years old. No more business cases. No more study. OPPD was going. The meter replacement is one piece of a larger transformation underway at the district, which serves more than 850,000 people across 5,000 square miles and 13 counties. Fernandez is overseeing a generational infrastructure build driven by surging demand from data centers, artificial
ENERGY AND UTILITIES NEBRASKA UTILITIES PUBLIC POWER DISTRICTS EXPLORE EFFICIENCY, COSTS Resource diversity allows Nebraskans to experience efficient energy delivery while maintaining some of the lowest prices in the country, say industry representatives. While data centers have been at the forefront of ENERGY ON PAGE 09
FERNANDEZ ON PAGE 06 A LEGACY PARTNER
250 Businesses 250 Visionaries 250 Making a Difference
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FOUR IMPACT 250 BUSINESSES START ON Page 14