ODU Co-Op Position Leads To Successful Career In Energy Field

by Susan Beck

Jim Johnson cites a cooperative education program at Old Dominion as jump-starting his career in the energy business. Johnson spent two semesters working in the co-op educational program, integrating classroom knowledge with workplace experience at Virginia Natural Gas. He graduated in 1984 with a degree in civil engineering technology.

More than two decades later, Johnson is a founding member of Richmond-based Compass Energy Services, a company that is expected to report annual earnings of $90 million in 2006. Since he and five friends acquired the company from Dominion Power in April 2004, it has seen revenues grow by 600 percent and was ranked third among the Top 100 fastest-growing companies in the country by Entrepreneur Magazine in 2005.

Working on the deregulated side of the energy business, Johnson has clients that include Fortune 500 companies, the federal government and state and local agencies. The company manages corporate energy procurement, supplies cost-competitive energy commodities and services, and coordinates the financing and installation of energy infrastructure and technologies.

In addition to the natural gas market, Compass Energy Services has expanded its business to include consulting, construction and coal industries across the country.

As vice president for asset management, Johnson said his role at the organization includes serving as a liaison between clients and the often-volatile energy market and orchestrating the logistics of delivering natural gas.

“It really helps that we have lengthy careers in the industry,” he said. “We work so well with Virginia Natural Gas, a company that often delivers our product to clients.”

At Old Dominion, Johnson was a full-time student and maintained a full-time job. Active in a variety of student and professional organizations, he was a member of the Association of General Contractors and the American Welding Society. “Old Dominion prepared me to enter the business world wearing multiple hats and to blend a variety of activities, from being a business owner to a corporate employee,” he said.

Johnson cites the personal relationships he was able to maintain with his professors, such as R. Moustafa Moustafa, associate professor of engineering technology, as integral to the learning process. “Looking back,” he said, “it was my time at Old Dominion that taught me the importance of relationship building.”

Johnson observed that in the post Enron era, clients in this business demand honesty and openness. “You wouldn’t believe how much of this industry is about personal relationships. The commodity market moves so fast, your clients have to trust your word and your handshake,” he said.