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Robert J. Buckler, PE, FESD, on His Retirement
Robert J. Buckler accepts ESD’s Rackham
Humanitarian Award, the most prestigious
award given to a member of the Society for
his/her humanitarian achievements.
here’s something to
be said for being with
the same company for
more than 30 years,
and ESD Fellow, Past
President and Rackham
Humanitarian Award
Recipient Robert J.
Buckler’s career with DTE Energy as
Detroit Edison’s President and Chief
Operating Officer is no exception.
Having just retired in December
2008, Mr. Buckler took a look back
at his career and shared some of his
hard-earned wisdom.
A graduate of the University of
Michigan with bachelor’s and master’s
degrees, Mr. Buckler’s first job was in
Newport News, New Jersey, working
on the U.S.S. Eisenhower and U.S.S.
Nimitz. He came back a year later to
the U of M to get his doctorate, but
got a job offer from Detroit Edison
that was too good to pass up. Mr.
Buckler started out doing high-tech
consulting to help upper management
make decisions on projects involving
new plants and making modifications
to existing ones.
From there, he went to the
Monroe power plant and into the fuel
supply arena to work on long-term
planning and the procurement of
fuel. That position led to another—
more prestigious one—helping
build the Fermi power plant on Lake
Erie. Not only was he in charge of
planning, but this was also his first
supervisory job and he was leading
a department of 125 people. Organization
was key. “We had to build it
on paper first and bring all of the
elements together,” he said.
His next position took him into
customer service for a year, where
he gained experience in credit and
collections, among other things. Mr.
Buckler said it was a huge storm in
1991 that led to a major call center
development: Voice Response Units
(VRUs). “Six hundred thousand
people were without power and we
did not have an automated system,”
he said. “After that, we were more
powerful because we went from
being able to process 2,500 calls an
hour to handling 50,000 an hour.
We were better able to find out how
many people were without power
and where they were. It mobilized
us.” Mr. Buckler also helped consolidate
six small call centers into one
centralized location in Southfield.
In 1998 he became Group
President of DTE Energy’s energy
distribution line and in 2005 was
named President and Chief Operating
Officer of Detroit Edison, which at
the time was 70% of DTE Energy.
As a “side job,” as he called it, Mr.
Buckler was asked to help integrate
MichCon when DTE Energy acquired
it in 2000.
Robert Buckler with Roger Penske, the owner
of the Penske Corporation
Mr. Buckler greets Wayne County Executive
and ESD Board member, Robert Ficano.
Of course, being involved with
DTE Energy means Mr. Buckler has
a story from the 2003 blackout. “I
had just given a speech in Livonia
and had gotten in my car. Since I
was in the habit of listening to books
on tape and not the radio, I had no
idea there was a blackout,” he said.
“I got home, found out, and had to
head downtown, which took me two
hours.”
After 32 hours and a few
catnaps in the office, power was
finally restored. Keeping things in
perspective, Mr. Buckler explained
that dealing with the blackout wasn’t
as bad as other outage situations.
“Regular storms are harder to get
back on-line than the blackout was.
There’s just so much damage and
debris during storms and during
the blackout, we just had to worry
about getting everyone back on in an
orderly fashion.”
14 | Technology Century | APRIL–MAY 2009