By Suzanne Herel

On Friday, PJM employee No. 13 switched off the lights of a nearly 53-year career, leaving open a position for a mentor, office jokester and Santa Claus.

“It’s an odd feeling. It’s not something you can ever rehearse or plan for,” Jim Kirby — commonly called Kirb — said in an interview on the morning of his last day. “It’s been a great ride.”

The Philadelphia native started his career with PECO Energy on Sept. 4, 1962, at 10th and Chestnut streets. That was back when the company was Philadelphia Electric Co. and ran PJM cooperatively with seven other utilities. The following year, Kirb became a PJM clerk, working as a load scheduler in operations.

Over the next 10 years, Kirb went to school at night to earn a degree in electrical engineering from Drexel University. PJM moved to Valley Forge in 1970, and through the years Kirb rose through the ranks to senior lead knowledge management consultant.

He was there to witness the single biggest game-changing event for the electric industry: retail choice — commonly, if less accurately, referred to as deregulation, which began in PJM in 1997 with Pennsylvania’s Electricity Generation Choice and Competition Act.

“You no longer had your vertically integrated utilities. Everything was diversified and split up, and so the membership grew exponentially. Now you had individuals building power plants … Pre-deregulation, you wouldn’t see this.”

Looking to the future, he said, “I think in the industry there’s going to be a lot of innovation in new power technology. There’s going to be a lot of work done on conservation of energy at the grassroots level. I think there’s a lot of investigation going on now into microgrids and distributed generation. We’re keeping up — PJM is in the middle of the discussions.”

PJM stakeholders took the occasion of Kirb’s final PJM Annual Meeting last month in Atlantic City to fête his contributions to the RTO’s culture over the past half-century, presenting him with gifts, a proclamation from Pennsylvania lauding his years of service — and a standing ovation.

Ed Tatum of Old Dominion Electric Cooperative invoked Kirb’s Santa Claus-like beard and belly, joking that he had spied him leaving a set of Lincoln Logs under the Christmas tree when he was 3.

“He’s a wise, wise man,” Tatum said. “What you taught me is when you’re getting into a situation, you need to know your stuff. You need to be technically accurate.”

Tatum said Kirb also taught him about interpersonal issues: That the only thing you can control is yourself and to not take yourself too seriously. “The value of relationships, you taught that to me,” he told Kirb.

Bob O’Connell of J.P. Morgan Ventures Energy recalled meeting Kirb 32 years ago. The two shared an affinity for fun in the workplace. But O’Connell said his own hijinks paled in comparison with Kirb’s, who already had 20 years on the job.

“I was just a mere amateur about some of the things I did in the office compared with Jim,” he said, adding, “Come next Friday, employees will feel more secure in the workplace because Jim won’t be lurking around the corner for them.”

“That’s a bum rap,” Kirb said with a laugh on his last day of work. “I didn’t play tricks. There was no sleight of hand. I’m too big for that — I can’t hide.”

Looking back at his proudest moments, Kirb pointed to the collegiality among employees that he helped foster.

“It’s really quite a company to work for,” he said of PJM. “It’s a caring company, and it hasn’t really changed. My payroll number was 13. There’s over 600 employees now. The overall care for each other and care for what we’re doing has continued.

“You just have to keep in mind that the other person that you’re dealing with is just as impassioned about their beliefs as you are, and at the end of the day, find the time to be a friend as well,” he said. “That person over the table with whom you’re disagreeing — they’re the same as you. They want the lights to stay on.”

There’s no doubt Kirb has had an outsized impact on the corporate culture: none of the dozen employees who preceded him is still working.

As he enters his first week of retirement, the 70-year-old says he has no particular plans beyond spending more time with his wife, two sons, daughter and 12 grandchildren.

“I’m available if anybody wants,” he said. “I’m always willing to talk. I was once accused that I was vaccinated with a phonograph needle.”