W. Gould, 86; Edison CEO Urged ‘Green’ Energy

William R. Gould, a former Southern California Edison executive who championed the development of renewable and alternative power sources decades before the concept was commonly accepted, has died. He was 86.

Gould, who was the utility’s chairman and chief executive officer from 1979 to 1984, died Saturday at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center of complications associated with old age and a stroke, said his son, Wayne.

“Far ahead of his time, Bill Gould saw the need for diverse energy sources,” John E. Bryson, chairman of Edison International, parent company of Southern California Edison, said in a statement.

As the firm’s 10th chief executive, Gould vowed that the utility would launch only power projects fueled by new or renewable energy sources. To meet the ever-growing energy demand, he challenged employees to develop alternative sources such as windmills, solar panels and fuel cells instead of relying on fossil-fuel plants.

Today, Southern California Edison provides about 18% of its electricity through renewable sources -- more than any other major utility, according to the company. It serves 13 million people in Southern and Central California.

By arranging for power to be shipped from one region to another, Gould envisioned what became the power-delivery system for the West Coast. His work served as a model for the nation.

Gould played a key role in the development of the Pacific Intertie System, a major high-voltage transmission line that delivers low-cost hydroelectric power from the wet Pacific Northwest to dry Southern California.

Another major project he oversaw was the construction of the San Onofre nuclear plant.

During his tenure, a pilot project that was then the world’s largest solar-powered electricity generating plant -- a field of mirrors that could power a small city -- began operating in the high desert, 12 miles southeast of Barstow.

His pledge in 1980 to develop unconventional power sources was seen as a signal that renewable technology had arrived. He saw it as choosing “high adventure.”

“If a species doesn’t go through a mutation to meet its new environment, it doesn’t survive,” he told Forbes magazine in 1981. “A corporation is in the same situation.”

William Richard Gould was born on Halloween in 1919 in Provo, Utah, one of four children of William, a locomotive engineer, and his wife, the former Pauline Feser. As a child, Gould stuttered severely -- a handicap that would help shape his life.

Because he often accompanied his father to work on the Utah Railway, Gould developed a fascination with technical devices, which led him to study mechanical engineering.

At the University of Utah, a counselor told him that “you can’t be an engineer because you can’t talk” and suggested that he “go back to the farm,” Gould’s son recalled.

Gould’s reply: “There’s no farm to go back to, so I guess I’ll stay.”

While earning his bachelor’s degree in engineering, he met Erlyn Johnson, whom he married the year he graduated, in 1942.

During World War II, the Navy sent him to graduate school to study naval architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and naval science at Dartmouth College.

Stationed at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, Gould tested the mechanical soundness of warships and re-engineered parts that didn’t work.

Southern California Edison recruited him in 1948 to work as a mechanical engineer at a Long Beach power plant. He rose through the ranks, becoming manager of the engineering department, a senior vice president, and president in 1978.

As an executive, he was known for quoting Rudyard Kipling, a habit he picked up because he could recite the long stanzas without stuttering.

On his watch in 1983, the company was awarded the John Alice Tyler Ecology-Energy Prize -- regarded as one of the world’s top awards for environmental scientists and leaders. He traveled to Kenya to accept it.

After retiring as chairman and chief executive in 1984, he remained on the company’s board of directors until 1992.

A resident of Long Beach, he referred to himself as “common folk” and lived in the same home for 40 years.

He traced his ancestry to Utah’s early Mormon immigrants, and he was active in the church, serving as a bishop and president of the Long Beach East Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Erlyn, his wife of 50 years, died in 1992, the year the couple established the William R. and Erlyn J. Gould Endowment to fund a science and engineering lecture series at the University of Utah.

Late in life, a sweet story from childhood took on new meaning.

One day in elementary school, his stuttering prevented him from finishing a recitation. A little girl in the first row named Millie reached out and held his hand.

In 1994, after being reintroduced by friends, he married her.

In addition to his wife, Millie Johnson Gould, and son, Wayne, he is survived by two other sons, William Jr. and Gilbert; daughter Erlyn; 25 grandchildren, including former Laker player Mark Madsen; and 40 great-grandchildren.

A service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 4142 Cerritos Ave., Los Alamitos. Burial will be in Provo, Utah.

Memorial donations may be made to the William R. and Erlyn J. Gould Lecture Fund at the University of Utah, 295 S. 1500 East, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112.