Hi, it’s Peter Ricchiuti, host of Out to Lunch.

Peter Ricchiuti hosts Out to Lunch, with Technical Director Eric Murrell (L) and Producer Grant Morris, at Columns in Uptown New Orleans

When you’re the CEO or Executive Director of a company, you’re responsible for, well, everything. If the company does well, you’re a genius. If the company does poorly, you’re fired.

Typically, the definition of business success is how much money a company makes. And that can be a function of market share. Both of my lunch guests today are executives of major New Orleans companies. Each of these companies has 100% market share. Yes, 100%. Meaning, everybody in New Orleans who uses the products they sell uses their products.

One of the companies supplies water, and removes sewerage. It’s called The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans. At this point if you’re saying, “Wait up, that’s not actually a private company,” well, you’re kind of right. Kind of. What the sewerage and water board isn’t, is a simple city department, like you find in New York City, Chicago, and Houston. Neither is it a wholly private company contracted by the city, like in Los Angeles or Phoenix. Instead, it’s a hybrid. It’s largely controlled by city politicians – the Mayor automatically serves as the board president – but it operates independently. It is not meant to make a profit, but it has its own revenue separate from city departments, and contracts with for-profit companies to provide some services. In short, it’s a public utility that’s run like a political board but expected to perform like a professional infrastructure company.

And sitting on top of this complicated setup is the Executive Director of the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans, Randy Hayman.

Randy Hayman, Executive Director of the Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans. “A city doesn’t run on gasoline, it runs on H-2-O.”

If your house or business is hooked up to gas, sometime in 2025 you stopped paying Entergy for it and started paying a company called Delta Utilities. Nobody asked you if you wanted to switch your gas supplier from Entergy to Delta, Entergy just decided to sell off its gas division and Delta Utilities was the company that bought it.

Delta Utilities is what’s called a “regulated utility.” Its operations, rates, service quality, and infrastructure investments are regulated by the State. But it’s a private company. Delta Utilities is owned by a private equity firm – Bernhard Capital Partners. It’s set up to serve customers, and to make a profit for its owners.

One of the people responsible for administering this complex structure is the Chief Administrative Officer of Delta Utilities, Jeremy Turner.

Jeremy Turner, Chief Administrative Officer of Delta Utilities, is “excited about the challenge of building a new ultility company from scratch” and is confident that warmer weather will bring warmer customer relations as the price of natural gas naturally declines

If you live in New Orleans, you’re 100% certain to have a relationship with the Sewerage and Water Board. Even if you have a septic tank in your back yard and you get all your water from your own well, you’re still going to be dependent on the infrastructure that keeps the city’s streets – and your house – free of flood water. And if you don’t have gas at your house, you can be pretty sure your favorite restaurant does. So, one way or another, the Sewerage and Water Board and Delta Utilities are woven into fabric of the everyday life of every person here in New Orleans.

In the immortal words of Leslie Neilsen in the movie Airplane, “Good luck. We’re all counting on you.” In the movie, that was a running joke, delivered even as the plane was in severe danger of crashing. In New Orleans, we often feel like we’re on the brink of disaster, but unlike Airplane, it’s not a joke. We are, in fact, all counting on Jeremy and Ryan.

Peter Ricchiuti, Jeremy Turner, Randy Hayman, Out to Lunch at Columns 

Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. Photos by Jill Lafleur.