Houston Gas & Fuel was the company started by James A.
Baker, the elder. Entex has connections with Pennzoil, which has been
controlled by Bush's friends the Liedtkes since 1962. Also has connections
to Arkla (Mac McLarty's company). Entex was spun off by Houston Natural
Gas, which merged with InterNorth of Omaha to become Enron in 1986. Then
both Entex and Arkla become part of Houston Industries, now Reliant.
Houston Industries was the corporation Jon Lindsay (county judge of Harris
County) had to resign from because of an apparent conflict of interest. At
the time, other directors included Jack T. Trotter, Howard W. Horne, Kenneth
Schnitzer and Thomas McDade. Baker & Botts was the attorney for the
company, and McDade was an attorney in the firm. Trotter was an oil and
gas attorney and also handled blind trusts and limited partnerships for people
like Jim Bath. He worked for Walter Mischer's Allied Bancshares. He
was also on the board of SCI, the funeral chain, in its early days of
expansion.
LM
Who We Are Today
Welcome to the services of Reliant
Energy Entex. We're part of the Reliant Energy family of companies which is
headquartered in Houston, Texas. We have over 2,000 employees in 100 offices
across three states.
Entex provides natural gas to approximately 1.5 million residential,
commercial and industrial customers in Houston, East Texas/Beaumont, South
Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. With more than 26,000 miles of main line and
16,000 miles of service lines, we distribute more than 160 billion cubic feet of
natural gas a year.
We're committed to producing natural gas resources efficiently and
encouraging our customers to use energy wisely. Our commitment to service
includes a tradition of public service that results in our employees donating
more than 50,000 volunteer hours a year to their communities.
Reliant Energy trades under the symbol REI on the New York Stock Exchange.
Visit our corporate website at www.reliantenergy.com.
Our History
1866: Houston Gas Light began
supplying gas for the streetlights of a small town called Houston
1912: Houston Gas Light was succeeded by Houston Gas & Fuel
1930: Houston Gas & Fuel joined with 40 other small companies in Texas,
Louisiana and Mississippi to form the original United Gas Corporation, a
consolidated distribution company
1970: United Gas Corporation and Pennzoil merged
and the distribution unit was spun-off as United Gas, Inc.
1974: United Gas, Inc. changed its name to Entex,
Inc.
1976: Entex added to its customer base by acquiring the
gas distribution properties of Houston Natural Gas Corporation
1988: Entex divested its remaining non-distribution assets and merged with NorAm
1996: Entex merged with Houston Industries Incorporated
1999: Houston Industries Incorporated changed its name to Reliant
Energy
=========
Article for LEADERS MAGAZINE
by
R. Steve
Letbetter
President and CEO, Reliant Energy
In February of this
year, Houston Industries changed its brand name to Reliant Energy. It marked
the culmination of a rebranding effort that had taken about 18 months and was
an extension of a strategic repositioning of the company which we began in the
early-1990’s.
In 1993, Houston Industries was an electric utility
serving about 1.4 million customers in a relatively small service territory
along the Texas Gulf Coast and with a very limited presence in Latin America.
While we had long been recognized as a well-managed company, we believed we
lacked the size, strength and many of the skills needed to survive and prosper
in the energy services industry that was rapidly evolving. So we set in motion
a strategy designed to broaden our skill set, rapidly grow the company and
better position the organization to seize developing opportunities in a
business that was consolidating and converging.
By 1998, we had
experienced considerable success with this strategy. Through acquisitions and
internal development, the company had grown to serve nearly 4 million electric
and natural gas distribution customers in six states in the U.S. and another
9.5 million foreign customers of Latin American utilities in which we have
ownership interests. As part of the transformation, we had acquired natural
gas pipeline and distribution operations and had become a top tier player in
wholesale electricity and natural gas marketing/trading and a major developer
of unregulated generating stations in the U.S.
Houston Industries had
been successfully transformed into a new company, one that was well positioned
to compete effectively and prosper in the new energy services environment. We
had become a full-fledged international energy services company with
capabilities across the energy services spectrum.
However, we realized
that these changes, as positive as they were, had created something of an
identity crisis.
Because much of our growth had been realized through
reorganization, strategic mergers and acquisitions, the company was operating
under many different brands. The Houston Industries brand was well-known and
respected in the industry and among business and political leaders in
Washington, Austin, Houston and on Wall Street. Our utility subsidiaries, HL&P, Entex, Arkla and
Minnegasco, were highly regarded in their respective markets.
NorAm Energy Services, NorAm
Energy Management, NorAm Gas Transmission, Houston Industries Energy, HI
District Cooling/Northwind and our other brands all had name recognition in
their particular market segments.
But this long list of
unrelated brands was a problem. It was confusing to existing customers and,
internally, to employees. None of the brands were well-known across all of our
existing markets. And the lack of unity in brands could become a substantial
obstacle as we entered new markets in the future.
[...]
After 132 years in the energy business, our reputation became our name
when Houston Industries became Reliant Energy.
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