From intern to CEO: Paul Lau takes the reins at SMUD

Paul Lau ’84 (Electrical Engineering) was at Sacramento State preparing for dental school, but he also knew how to code. That knowledge landed him an internship in 1982 with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which provides electricity to the region.

That internship changed the course of his career.

Having already decided against dentistry, Lau was inspired to switch his major to Electrical Engineering.

Now, 38 years after walking through SMUD’s door as an intern, he has been named its chief executive officer. He officially took the reins of the community-owned utility on Oct. 3.

“When I worked for SMUD (in college), at the time I didn’t think I was going to be here 30 years,” he said. “I thought, ‘Oh, you know, it’s a good summer job …  a good job to help me pay the bills.’ ”

Lau calls himself an example of the “American success story.” Born in Hong Kong, he moved with his mother and stepfather to Nigeria when he was 9, then to Sacramento at age 12. One of his sisters already lived here, and his parents believed they all would have a better life in the United States.

Barely speaking English, he attended Valley Vista Junior High and Norte Del Rio High School. His sisters were nurses, so when it came time for college, he similarly targeted the medical fields and settled on dentistry.

Lau initially planned to attend UC Riverside after graduating from high school in 1979. But his sister was at Sacramento State and encouraged him to stay local. Upon touring the campus, he was struck by the diversity of its student body.

“There was a very big international presence of students from Hong Kong,” he said. “So when I walked on campus, I really felt, for lack of a better term, ‘Oh, this is a place I want to be at.’ ”

He became heavily involved in campus life, playing on the ping pong and table tennis team, working the games room, and serving as vice president for the Chinese Student Association.

Through his first two years, his eyes remained set on dentistry. Then he volunteered in a dental clinic at UC Davis Medical Center and realized he hated it. A classmate from a Physics course connected him to the SMUD internship, which led him to switch his major.

The Electrical Engineering courses, Lau said, were practical and designed to prepare students to hit the ground running once their careers began.

“The classes are very hands-on, the homework projects were pretty much like what you would do coming out in the industry and working in an electric utility or any one of those research companies,” he said.

Remarkably, Lau is not the only Electrical Engineering alum to be promoted recently to the head of a major utility company. In June, Caroline Winn ’85 was named CEO of San Diego Gas & Electric.

Their success is no surprise to Mahyar Zarghami, Electrical and Electronic Engineering chair, who oversees the top-ranked program.

“Sac State is proud to have established a strong program in the area of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,” he said. “Our EEE program is known for its reputable scholarship in fields such as power and energy systems and engineering. Paul and Caroline are wonderful examples of our distinguished alumni.”

Over the course of nearly four decades, Lau has served in several capacities at SMUD, including assistant general manager of Customer, Distribution and Technology; assistant general manager of Power Supply and Grid Operations; and most recently as chief grid strategy and operations officer.

As CEO, he will lead the nation’s sixth-largest community-owned electric utility, which provides power for Sacramento County and parts of Placer and Yolo counties.

“SMUD has always given me the opportunity and encouraged me to leave my comfort zone, to try different jobs,” Lau said. “It sounds like a very long time, 38 years. It didn’t feel long because I was always able to change jobs, learn new challenges and then get promoted into different areas.”

Lau said he relishes having a job where his work has an impact on the future of the community and where the company values – he points to its community focus and emphasis on renewable energy – are ones he shares.

They are values he can trace to his time as a Hornet.

“Working hard, giving back to the community, always serving the community, and always thinking about, long term, how can you actually help our community grow and make sure the community stays vibrant?” he said. “That’s, to me, what I learned from Sac State.”

From hoops star to high school mentor: Jameel Pugh pays it forward

Sacramento State basketball standout Jameel Pugh ’05 (Child Development) twice received assists from Bill Macriss. 

The first time was when Macriss, then Sac State’s associate athletic director, caught Pugh breaking into the gym for extra practice. Instead of punishing him, Macriss promised to open the building early. Pugh finished the season strong, helping launch him into a professional basketball career. 

The second came when Macriss and Athletic Director Terry Wanless interrupted practice to present Pugh with an academic award for achieving a 3.0 GPA. 

“It was the first academic award I had received, and that propelled me forward to think about my future as a scholar,” Pugh said. “Having people who saw and recognized and supported my academic abilities, alongside my athletic abilities, was instrumental in preparing me for life.” 

Pugh now plays a similar role for hundreds of Sacramento teenagers. As the college and career counselor at Inderkum High School in Natomas, he prepares students for what comes after graduation – guiding and shaping lives just as Macriss and others did for him. 

When Pugh looks at his students, he sees himself. Perhaps more importantly, they see themselves in him. 

“It’s a mutual relationship,” he said. “When we connect, it’s like I got their ear, I got their respect, just like my mentors did for me.” 

He spent most of his childhood in Fremont, and his early school years were defined by dominance on the basketball court and struggles in the classroom. When he was 15, his mother moved to Sacramento while he stayed behind to live with a mentor. Shortly after, his inability to follow rules got him kicked off the basketball team and out of the house on the same day. He then joined his mom in Sacramento. 

At Grant High School, he had a notable basketball career, which included winning the Nike World Dunk tournament in France and being named by SLAM magazine the best dunker in the world. He accepted a scholarship to the University of Massachusetts, but when the head coach was fired, he decided to come home and play at Sacramento State. 

The presence at Sac State of a heavily recruited star like Pugh had a significant impact on the basketball program, said Macriss, now the University’s associate vice president of Student Affairs and interim dean of students. But Pugh thrived off the court as well. 

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“The same work ethic that he brought to the basketball court he brought to every aspect of his life, including academics,” Macriss said. “Not only was he bright and a hard worker, but there was just a charismatic nature to him.” 

After taking a Child Development course, Pugh realized that helping young people thrive was his mission in life and chose the field as his major. He spent hours working with kids at the campus’ child development center. 

“That kind of hands-on experience gave me a sense of where I felt comfortable,” he said. “That let me know that this was something that I could do.” 

Pugh had found his passion for working with young people, but that pursuit was put on hold for 2 1/2 injury-plagued years while he pursued a professional basketball career. He was drafted into the NBA Chicago Bulls’ development league team, then played overseas in New Zealand – “probably the best cultural experience of my life,” Pugh said – and Australia. 

When his playing days ended, he returned to Sacramento and began his work with the region’s youth, first with the City of Sacramento and then with the Sacramento City Unified School District. After managing a development program for college students in Philadelphia and serving on a workforce investment board in the south Bay Area, Pugh in July 2016 began his role at Inderkum. 

“He’s a person who probably could stake his claim just about anywhere in the world, but he wanted to come back to Sacramento, and he wanted to work with students and work with this community,” Macriss said. 

Pugh is responsible for preparing students for whatever comes after high school – four-year college, community college, vocational school, the military or the workforce – and giving them the tools to make the best choice. Crucially, students are involved in and, in many cases, leading every aspect of this work. The College and Career Readiness Team (CCR), made up of nearly 30 seniors and juniors, produces a wide range of material and programming, including videos on scholarships, podcasts featuring college and career professionals, and blog posts for parents. 

It has paid off in a big way. When Pugh arrived, just half of Inderkum’s seniors were accepted into college, he said. Four years later, that number has risen to nearly 70%. 

Pugh lights up when talking about his students, eagerly pointing them out in photos: This one was the first in Inderkum history to be accepted into Harvard and Yale (he went to UC Berkeley); this one got a full ride to Georgetown; this one wouldn’t leave Pugh alone until he let her onto the team – and raised her GPA from below 2.0 to 4.0 in just one semester. 

Reina Villongco was an Inderkum junior when Pugh spoke at the semiannual “class meeting.” Intrigued by the opportunity to help others, she applied for and was accepted to the CCR. The following year, she served as its chief of staff. 

Being part of CCR introduced her to important information about applying to college and helped her gain new skills and confidence. Pugh, she said, sets the tone by empowering students to create content and programming in their own voice, and is a mentor they can count on even after they graduate. 

“He really loves his work and values it more than just a job, and you can tell by the way that not just me but other CCR students, he’s gotten to know us for who we are, not just as a student, not just for how we can benefit the program,” said Villongco, now a Sacramento State sophomore studying Human Resources and Organizational Behavior. “Not a lot of people naturally do that, and I think that’s why, as students, we keep that bond with him past high school.” 

Outside of his job, Pugh’s other passions are photography and videography. He got his start in the former at Sac State, when the Athletics office gave him a media credential to cover a football game against Fresno State. Today, he photographs professional sports including the San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders and Sacramento Kings – impressive for someone largely self-taught. 

He also has released two documentaries and continues his own education. He holds an executive master’s degree in Organizational Leadership from the University of Southern California and is pursuing his doctorate in Human Resources and Workforce Development online though the University of Arkansas. 

Pugh doesn’t forget his time at Sac State, however. The University, he said, is a “hidden gem” that made his academic and basketball dreams come true. It’s where he met so many of his lifelong friends (and where his wife got her master’s in Social Work). 

And it is, of course, where he found some of the mentors who helped keep him on the right path, mentors who inspire him to give back to today’s young people. 

“As a kid who grew up with a single parent, I am the benefactor of so many amazing mentors, people who stepped in for me and made sure that I never lacked for support, resources or guidance,” Pugh said. “When you have that at your disposal and you realize how that’s changed the trajectory of your life, you realize you can never pay those people back, so your best goal is to pay it forward.” 

Main photo credit: Hazart Sanker; Archive basketball photos courtesy Sac State Athletics

December Stroble learned to become a nursing leader at Sacramento State

December Stroble’s parents met while working in the emergency room at David Grant Hospital on Travis Air Force Base. December’s mother went on to work as a nurse and paramedic, and her father later worked in a nursing home.

It was only natural for Stroble ’06 (Nursing) to follow in their footsteps, not just into health care, but to the front line. Today, she is a registered nurse at Sutter Health, working out of the emergency room, specializing in pediatric emergencies and disaster management.

She’s one of hundreds of graduates from Sacramento State’s acclaimed School of Nursing, most of whom work in the Sacramento community, and among the multitudes of health care workers worldwide responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Sacramento State/Andrea Price)

At Sacramento State, Stroble learned the leadership skills necessary for her to do her job well, even amid a global health crisis.

“Leadership was encouraged by the faculty – to be an advocate, to be educated, to provide the best, safest care for your patient,” she said. “At Sac State I was able to practice those values as a student, and now I’m able to practice them as a nurse.”

A Sacramento native, Stroble says she was an inquisitive child. Her father Jay taught her about the outdoors and survival skills, something that prepared her for eventual career.

She enrolled as a pre-med student at American River College intending to become a paramedic like her mother, Kathy Burns, who advised her to go instead into nursing. Her mother died shortly after that conversation, but six months later, Stroble was accepted into nursing school at Sac State, drawn by the ability to earn both a Nursing license and bachelor’s degree at the same time. She was not the first or last Hornet in her family: Her older brother graduated in the 1990s, and her younger brother followed in 2007.

At Sac State, Stroble was drawn to leadership opportunities. She served as president of the California Nursing Students Association, as an officer in Sac State’s CNSA chapter, and as western director of the National Student Nurses’ Association.

“It was something I felt called to do, and I really am glad I took those opportunities,” she said. “I was able to get leadership experiences I would have never had elsewhere.” Her classes also stressed leadership, as well as community health and involvement.

“One of the things that Sac State really instilled into us is being a part of the community and giving back to it,” Stroble said. “That’s what I appreciate most about my time at Sac State.”

Those opportunities prepared Stroble for life in the emergency room. She has worked since 2004 at Sutter Health, most recently based in the adult ER but also as a member of the core pediatric group, a smaller team that helps kids in the children’s ER. She teaches, among other topics, the Emergency Nursing Pediatric Course (ENPC) for the Emergency Nurses Association, an international curriculum.

In addition to multiple licenses and certifications, Stroble earned an Executive Master of Professional Studies in Emergency and Disaster Management degree from Georgetown University in 2016.

“What I enjoy most about nursing is the critical thinking aspect of it,” she said. “It’s not just, I go and I do my job, I put an IV in, I give a medicine. The emergency department is different from other areas of the hospital.”

ER nurses, for example, analyze lab and test results and assess the effectiveness of medications given in treatment, she said. If change is needed, they work with the physician to find another option.

Teaching and training are also important to Stroble, who says lifelong education is built into nursing because health care is ever-changing. Never has that been more evident than during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She again credits what she learned about leadership at Sacramento State for helping her navigate the crisis. Her faculty mentor, Professor of Nursing Denise Wall Parilo, said those qualities were evident in Stroble from the start of her time at Sacramento State.

“Leadership and advocacy are definitely something we encourage in our students. December is one of those people who isn’t afraid to take on a leadership role, but also she uses those skills to get what is needed for her patients,” Wall Parilo said. “If she doesn’t know how to do something, she can figure it out. She knows the resources to go to.”

Though the School of Nursing has been fortunate to have many students over the years take on leadership roles in state and national organizations, Wall Parilo said Stroble was among the first.

“She and the classes around her set the bar high and showed our students what could be done and how far they could go,” Wall Parilo said.

Stroble doesn’t slow down in her spare time. She has snorkeled across Icelandic tectonic plates and is an avid mountain climber, glacier climber and kayaker. She and her family operate a small farm in El Dorado County, a dream of hers since she was a child. And she has spoken out on political issues, once testifying at the state Capitol about workplace violence.

But she says her patients are why she comes back to the hospital every day. She enjoys getting to know them and their families, and hearing their stories.

“Most of our patients are very appreciative of the care that they receive, and it’s nice to be able to give to someone,” Stroble said. “And they give back that caring to us by saying, ‘Hey, thanks for taking care of me today,’ ”