Palo Alto, Calif., City Manager Ed Shikada announced on May 15 the selection of Alan Kurotori as Palo Alto’s Utilities Director.
Kurotori has served as the City’s Utilities Chief Operating Officer for the last eight months, coming to Palo Alto with over 30 years municipal utilities and City government executive leadership experience.
The selection follows a robust national executive recruitment launched following the retirement of Utilities Director Dean Batchelor and is subject to City Council confirmation.
“I am thrilled to announce the selection of Alan as the City’s Utilities director and believe his qualifications, leadership and utilities experience strongly aligns well with Palo Alto’s values and strategic direction,” said Ed Shikada, city manager of Palo Alto. “Alan has a strong track record of operational excellence, innovation and community engagement and is well positioned to lead critical priorities such as utility reliability and infrastructure advancements, environmental sustainability and innovative service delivery to meet the needs of our utility customers.”
Palo Alto Utilities Department is the City’s largest department with over 279 employees, providing a full array of services to residents and businesses including electricity, water, wastewater, natural gas, and fiber optics.
As one of very few locally owned utilities with this range of services, Palo Alto is recognized nationally as innovative and leading in reliability, safety, environmental sustainability, workforce development and system improvement while maintaining rate affordability, the city said.
"With over 125 years of public utility operations, the department leads in supplying a carbon neutral electricity and gas through renewable energy, carbon emission offsets, and programs to help customers use energy and water more efficiently, reduce their carbon footprint and integrate new technologies. The department is advancing innovative service delivery, including exploring fiber to the premises as a pilot and implementing robust grid modernization efforts," a news release from Palo Alto said.
“I look forward to continuing to work with the City Manager and the City’s executive leadership team, the Palo Alto City Council, Utilities Advisory Commission, and the Palo Alto community in this new capacity,” said Kurotori. “Partnering together with our dedicated Utilities team, I am committed to ensuring reliability and safety, fostering community engagement and collaborative decision-making and advancing progress on utilities priorities using industry best practices.”
Kurotori joined the City of Palo Alto as Utilities Chief Operating Officer and has since advanced strategic initiatives such as the Foothill Fire Mitigation Project electrical undergrounding anticipated this summer and California Independent System Operator’s projected approval of a new 115KV (“Second”) Transmission Line serving Palo Alto.
Kurotori has served in several executive level municipal utility roles including over twenty years with the City of Santa Clara as Water & Sewer Utilities director, assistant city manager during the construction of Levi’s NFL Stadium, and assistant director of Electric Utility (Silicon Valley Power), plus additional Bay Area municipal executive leadership roles at Valley Water and the City of Mountain View.
Kurotori also has experience in the private sector as engineering consultant in water supply, wastewater, recycled water, and public works.
Kurotori was recently elected to the Board of Governors for the California Municipal Utilities Association (CMUA), which represents 84 publicly owned electric utilities, water and wastewater agencies statewide and is a registered professional civil engineer in California.
Kurotori will take on his new role at the end of May. Council consideration and confirmation of the Utilities Director selection was scheduled for May 19, 2025.
