The Orlando Utilities

Commission taps longtime vice president Clint Bullock to become its new CEO.

The Orlando Utilities Commission spent several months and nearly $100,000 in its search for a new leader, culminating in 36 applicants and four finalists.

But when it came time for the OUC board to deliberate last week over whom to select, the choice was clear within a dozen minutes. Choosing between an accomplished outsider and a vice president seen as groomed for the promotion, OUC’s board decided that its next leader will be the more familiar face.

Clint Bullock, 46, is in his 28th year at the city-owned utility and has rotated through many departments.

“I’m second-generation for those who don’t know,” said Bullock during his interview with the board last week. “I was born into this family, literally. My father spent 30 years representing OUC. He was a lineman.”

The other top contender was Doyle Beneby, who previously ran a larger utility in San Antonio, Texas. He is lauded for arriving during a troubled time for that utility and putting it on track for increasing reliance on renewable energy.

“I do worry about Doyle that he’s just over-qualified for the situation we are in. He would be very disruptive,” said board member Britta Gross, a GM director for electric cars, who nonetheless concluded about Beneby that “he was amazing, just amazing.”

The nearly century-old OUC projects more of a culture of a family-run business and less of a Wall Street driven utility subject to mergers, as has been the case with Duke Energy, Central Florida’s biggest utility.

For its top job, OUC advertised a salary $350,000 to $450,000.

The two candidates approached their interviews differently, with Bullock emphasizing his deep roots in the city utility and his sense of duty to uphold its trust.

Bullock said that during his current role in charge of the delivery of power and water, he has overseen workers who have known him most of his life.

“There are employees over there that literally have seen me grow up,” Bullock said.

During his turn Monday afternoon, Beneby highlighted his deep well of experience at has of