THRIVING
MEET TAMMY TRAN, SENIOR MANAGER OF GOVERNMENT RELATIONS.
As a senior manager in Local Public Affairs, I lead a team of Government Relations Managers based in the Orange County Region. We manage local government and stakeholder engagement with elected officials, city staff, advocacy and community stakeholders to support SCE’s work in strengthening and modernizing the grid for our clean energy future.
At the core of SCE, is a group of passionate and collaborative people. “Everything that we do at Southern California Edison involves people, whether it’s our customers or the teams that we work on or people that we’ve just met for the first time to solve a particular problem,” explains Tran.
These people form the dynamic culture at SCE, with Tran stating that, at SCE, “Every day is a different day, where we can learn something new; and every day is an opportunity to grow professionally and make connections with the people that we work with as well as the people that we serve.”
SCE also has a consistent focus on safety — not just electrical and personal safety, but psychological safety, too. “We want to be able to go to work every day and be able to come back to our families in one piece and be happy,” says Tran.
In this article, she shares more about her impressive career journey, her best advice for making companies more inclusive, tips for her fellow women in leadership positions (particularly women of color and women in traditionally male-dominated industries), how she helps other women and more!
Can you tell us a bit about you, your life and your job?
I am the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, and I’m currently a senior manager for local public affairs at Southern California Edison. I’m proud to have worked at the company for almost ten years. And, during that time, I became a mom. So I see myself as a professional at Southern California Edison, but my real job is being a working mom of two young kids that I’m hoping will grow up in a world that is clean and full of kindness. My eight-year-old daughter and my five-year-old son are both Vietnamese Americans going through bilingual education. And I think that’s very core to what I do at Southern California Edison.
As a mother, could you tell us a little bit about how SCE supports you as a working parent?
Southern California Edison is a great place to work. As a working mom, I feel very supported. I became a mom in the first year that I worked at Southern California Edison. It was very nerve wracking to start a new job and also become a new mom, but I have never not felt supported at the company — that is really important because our lives are integrated in a lot of ways because of the pandemic. A lot of us are working from home, and so the lines between work and life and work-life balance have really blurred. But, I think that something that is very much a part of Edison’s culture is that we believe in safety, that’s something that’s integrated into our workday every single day. Safety comes with psychological safety as well as physical safety. So I’ve always felt supported with what’s most important to me: my kids and my family. And that’s a reason I’m very proud to be an employee at Southern California Edison.
What’s a project that you are currently working on that you are excited about?
A project that I’m particularly interested in at Southern California Edison right now is an operational excellence catalyst program that I’m a part of. That’s a project where they pull leaders in from across the company to work on transformational change for the company, whether it is addressing a major pain point that people have been working on for years or whether it’s how we change the industry. And the exciting thing about Southern California Edison is that we are working on problems that are local as well as global and that’s taking climate action.
What is your favorite thing about SCE?
My favorite thing about Southern California Edison is that I’m learning something new every day. I’m coming to nine years at the company, and every day there’s something new that I’ve learned, whether it’s from the 12,000 people that work at Southern California Edison or the five million people that we serve.
What advice would you give to other women who are thinking about working at SCE?
Reach out to us. There are so many women that are currently working at Southern California Edison who are doing very well, and we come from diverse backgrounds, we have diverse education, we come from across the Southern California region and we’re very active on LinkedIn. I would really encourage all of you to reach out to me; I always have my door open. We also have women leaders up and down the organization from the executive suite all the way down to entry-level organization. And I guarantee that no woman at Southern California Edison would not welcome the opportunity to speak to you about the opportunity to work at Edison, whether it’s advice on how to go through the interview process or what life is like at Southern California Edison or how have we adapted in this pandemic environment — I guarantee that any woman at Edison would welcome the opportunity to share personal advice as you’re going through the process in joining our company.
We are always looking for candidates who have a background in government, advocacy, or nonprofit sectors and are passionate about people, purpose, and planet! For career professionals interested in government relations, I would advise candidates to stay informed and intelligently curious about the dynamic nature of the public policy work as well as the clean energy industry. Get involved in your community, serve on a board, participate in an Edison sponsored program, or just reach out to connect.
