Ron Holt, Retired President and Chairman of the Board
Kansas Gas & Electric
Luck, hard work or connections?
Our corporate standouts say it takes all three to make it up the corporate ladder, with each of them leaning heavily on one over the other.
For Ron Holt, it’s all about connections, or relationships, as he prefers to call it.
At the end of 2001, Holt retired as CEO of Kansas Gas & Electric, after joining the company in 1970 as a meter reader. Holt, who is known for his strong management and organizational skills, says hard work is important, but he says the “extra” came from building strong relationships.
Holt’s Beginning
If you live in Northeast Wichita, you probably know a member of the Holt family. Ron was one of 10 Holt children, and generations of their family who still reside here.
The family was from Lockesberg, AR, where Ron was born in 1946. The family moved to Wichita when Ron was in 2nd grade, but life with nine siblings and two parents in a three-bedroom house made Ron decide to move back to Arkansas where he was raised by his maternal grandparents.
It was the South in the ’50s and racism, Jim Crowism and segregation were the norm. While he lived in a house that didn’t have running water, which required treks to the outhouse, and he attended and graduated from a segregated school system, he credits his early upbringing and grandfather for helping shape his life.
Even as an African American male in the south in the 1950s and 60s, his grandfather was highly respected in the community.
“He was independent and he worked hard, but he survived by building relationships and gaining respect,” says Holt.
It’s a model Ron followed as he grew his career.
Back to Wichita
After graduating high school in 1964, he moved back to Wichita, and after three semesters at Wichita State University – where he admits he didn’t apply himself – he took a job at Boeing. However, it was the height of the Vietnam War and, fearing he was going to be drafted, he joined the Kansas Army Guard. Eventually, his unit was activated and he was shipped to Fort Carson, CO, for training.
At that time, the military had a rule that they wouldn’t send two males from a family into a war zone at the same time. Ron’s brother Roger was already in Vietnam, so Ron spent the full 18 months of his activation at Fort Carson.
He returned to Wichita in 1969 – he was married to wife Karen, had three children and, due to an economic downturn, Boeing wouldn’t hire him back. He took a job at Macy’s but knew that was not enough to maintain a family of five.
Two months later, he received a call from Walt Nelson, a person he’d served with in the Kansas Guard. Nelson worked in the personnel department for Kansas Gas & Electric and suggested Ron apply for a job.
Ron put in an application and two months later received a call from Walt offering him a job as a meter reader. It was the first example of relationships playing a role in Holt’s career. While their shared military experience was the connection, it was what Walt saw in Ron – his work ethic, intelligence, strong character – that made him reach out to Ron for what would prove to be a pivotal turning point for Ron and for KG&E.
It was the early 1970s and Wichita’s business environment was still very segregated. There were definitely Black jobs, and, up until the time they hired Ron, meter reader hadn’t been one of them. Prior to hiring Ron, the only positions held by Blacks at KG&E were janitors.
On the Way Up
Thanks to the flexibility of his meter reading job and a subsequent job at the company working third shift in the company’s customer call center, Ron was able to use his G.I. Bill to complete his college degree while working full time.
Ron was about to complete his degree in business at Friends University when his friend Walt reached out to him and asked him to apply for a position in the Personnel Department.
As an Employment Specialist, his job in personnel was hiring and recruiting and helping the company reach its new Equal Employment Opportunity goals.
Although he wasn’t in a position to hire, Ron says his goal was always to make sure that when he sent candidates for hiring to a department, that it was a minority candidate the bosses would have a hard time saying no to.
“I didn’t try to keep track, but one of the greatest rewards of working there was having the opportunity to give people a chance to get their foot in the door,” says Holt.
The company’s target was to match the minority population of the community, around 12% to 13%. Under his watch, they got close.
Community Engagement
It was in Personnel that Holt was introduced to involvement and service in the community. Not long after he hired into the Personnel Department, the vice president of human resources called him into the office and told him he wanted him, like others in the department, to get involved in the community.
The vice president understood that having a strong city was good for the electric company. As the community grew, so would the electric company. So he encouraged, almost demanded, that professionals in his department become involved in community nonprofits and programming designed to help strengthen the community.
Ron was given a great deal of flexibility to attend community meetings during business hours, but he was still expected to get his job done.
His first involvement was with the United Way. On that board was an executive from Union Bank, one from Beechcraft, and others. As a young Black man in his late 20s and first level professional in Personnel, he was being introduced to some of the city’s most powerful movers and shakers.
Within a year, he was recruited to serve on the board of the Red Cross.
“The unfortunate part about it was that these nonprofit organizations wanted people of color and there weren’t many people to draw from,” said Holt. “So I was kind of being pulled in two directions. Those, I got to do for the company, and I liked doing them, but the lead part was the company.”
The other pull was to organizations he had a personal interest in, like The Boys and Girls Club, the Urban League and Big Brothers and Big Sisters. He always made sure to keep some of these projects on his list, often bringing the support of KG&E with him.
From two boards, two dozens of community activities including board memberships, commission and special project committees, Ron Holt became a “go-to” person of influence in Wichita.
Luck, Hard Work or Relationship?
As Ron’s involvement in the community grew, so did his role at KG&E (which along with Kansas Power & Light of Topeka were purchased by Western Resources, later named Westar, and now Evergy). He moved up steadily in the company. In 1992, when KG&E was purchased and the company was reorganized, Ron became Director of Community Services. He was the perfect fit for this job that worked to continue the company’s involvement in the Wichita community.
He led that department until 2000 when he was appointed chairman of the board and president of KG&E. He retired from the company in 2002 and a few months later joined Sedgwick County as one of the government’s leading administrators.
It was a stellar career unmatched by any other African American in Wichita, and by very few – if at all – of any race. In addition to hard work and strong ethical standards, Ron credits relationship building as the number one influencer in his career success.
He says where a number of people fall short is in not building relationships.
“In that comes trust. You build respect from people in the community,” said Holt. “Initially, they respected me because I came with KG&E’s money and if KG&E was trusting me to be there, people saw me as KG&E.”
His outside respect helped grow his respect inside KG&E and Ron’s growing respect in the community began to prove beneficial for KG&E.
He says where a number of people fall short is in not building relationships.
“It builds trust,” he says, and trust in the right places can help build success..
Benefits Others
Not to be overlooked, is the benefit of having a person like Ron in the many rooms when major decisions were being made about the Wichita community, who would speak up and provide a different, or more balanced perspective to a number of important decisions that were being made. His speaking up often benefited Wichita’s Black community. .
While his influence in this area are difficult to measure, one large example of his influence was the construction of the Boys and Girls Club in Northeast Wichita. Russ Myer, president of Cessna Aircraft, was thinking of investing in a YMCA in Northeast Wichita, but instead – based on their relationship – approached Ron about building the Boys and Girls Club. With Ron’s commitment to help convince the community and help raise the funds, the project moved ahead.
“I don’t ever remember that if you talk about doing the right thing that somebody didn’t say, you know, that’s right. We need to not do this or do it this way, because it’s the right thing to do.”
“I always tried to balance being honest, having good integrity, but not being the first one to be the rabble rouser,’ says Holt.
