Employment History:

Published Works:

Public Speaking Experience:

Why He is an Expert:
A lot of the people in the area - whether in Illinois or Missouri, call Mr. Zuege the consultant to the world of utilities, at least within the Ameren community. He is considered the go-to person if you have a question, whether it’s on how they do business or design things; also what types of products do or should they use. "I tend to get calls from both Missouri and Illinois from all kinds of folks," he states. "I’m the sounding board.

Best Advice:
"The advice I have to give to pretty much everybody in our industry is to hang in there right now. We’ve gone through the deregulation; now we’re going through re-regulation. Everything from budgets to personnel to how we deal with customers is in a state of flux right now. It will settle down, but it’s going to take a while."

Passionate about:
"In our business environment, I am still passionate about the asset management model to run basically any corporation. In the utility world, where you’re living on borrowed money all the time – it doesn’t matter who it is – it’s pretty critical that you apply your resources to get the biggest bang for your buck."

Biography Excerpt:
Robert J. Zuege is a supervising engineer at AmerenIP, a gas and electric utility provider servicing 2.2 million customers in Missouri and Illinois. He oversees engineering, marketing, construction, asset management and business operations with engineering personnel reporting to him from two geographical areas of Illinois. While his role at AmerenIP is supervisory, the core of Mr. Zuege's position lies in addressing customer issues. He asks, “‘How do we take care of customers' needs, even though they have no idea what they actually need?’ That’s the focus of what I do.”

     

Cambridge Who's Who: What prompted you to pursue a career in engineering?  
ROBERT J ZUEGE :  That’s a good question, since I’ve been doing this for 38 years now. Even when I was fairly young, I wanted to go into the engineering world. I pretty much determined that by the time I was a seventh or eighth grader.

What is your greatest professional accomplishment to date?
The most significant one, from an industry standpoint and with the company I work for, was the introduction and implementation of an asset management model for what used to be Illinois Power Company (we're now part of Ameren). Ameren is starting to move back towards that kind of a model. There was a significant step from my power company that changed the entire way they went about business.

What is the most difficult obstacle or challenge you have faced in pursuit of your personal goals?
Well, there have been [challenges] that are typical of any corporation. You end up having a philosophy on business and engineering that differs from those of the members of the management team who are above you. You just have to work within the organizational structure you have on a daily basis, recognizing that you can only do what you can do. You try to explain your positions to those above you – if they’re interested – and hope that they’ll at least listen. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.