Ashley Floyd

Manager, Coal & Gas Services | Chattanooga, Tenn.

Ashley Floyd grew up hearing about TVA’s mission of service. The company had touched her life before she was even born.

“I grew up listening to stories from my great-grandmother about how TVA saved our family,” says Floyd, a senior contracts manager for Coal & Gas Sourcing. “Her family had a farm in Birchwood, Tennessee. They were dirt-poor. They didn’t have electricity; my grandfather and his brothers walked to the nearest school. They had a hard life. Then TVA approached them and purchased the family farm, which is now under Lake Chickamauga.”

My grandfather and great grandmother often said that TVA made their lives better. Now I work in TVA in Supply Chain. What brought me to TVA was that mission of service.

When the purchase came through, they were able to buy a house in Chattanooga, and that opened them to new opportunities, Floyd says: “They had electricity, they could buy a washing machine, things they’d never had. My grandfather and his brothers went to bigger schools that taught them trades they could use. I heard him and my great-grandmother say many times that TVA made their lives better.”

A Mission Made Personal

Floyd grew up in Chattanooga and went to school there, obtaining her Bachelor of Accounting degree from the University of Tennessee and a Master’s in Business Administration from Bryan College. Always drawn to the idea of serving other people, she came to TVA from Blue Cross Blue Shield. Now, she works with coal and gas generation sites to ensure projects are completed efficiently, effectively and economically.

“What I do fits into TVA’s mission of service in several ways,” said Floyd, pointing to the three Es of energy, environment and economic development.

“There’s the aspect of financial responsibility, but also reliability—if the plants don’t have what they need, that becomes a reliability issue,” she explains. “There’s also an aspect of service, and in Supply Chain we strive to include vendors that are small, diverse and/or valley based. So we provide that economic development impact, too.”

Floyd knows that her work directly helps TVA fulfill its mission to the people of the Valley. “Right now I’m working with Paradise Fossil Plant on their gypsum dewatering equipment and dry fly ash conversion projects,” she says. “These will help the environment as well as make our units more efficient, which keeps our rates low.”

An Example of Service

In addition to the mission of service, Floyd is deeply devoted to diversity and inclusion—she is head of the COC Diversity & Inclusion steering team, is on the Diversity Council and serves on the Disability Compass, a group that looks specifically at how TVA can become more diverse and accommodating to employees with disabilities. “Everyone should feel included,” said Floyd. “I’m really passionate about that. We should all promote diversity and inclusion. We should all respect each other.”

Floyd has set an example for her two teenage daughters, who are also involved in community service. They’re athletes as well, so life is busy for her and her husband, who’s in the Air Force Reserve.

Add a pack of animals, and things get wackier. “We have a veritable zoo at our home,” laughs Floyd. “I have two Bull Mastiff pups and two older ‘gentlemen’, an Akita mix and a pointer mix. They’re my babies.”

Through it all, she keeps her eyes on the prize. “I start and end every day driving down my driveway, passing under the main transmission line for my area, being reminded that I have the privilege of serving the people of the Tennessee Valley,” she reflects. “This is a privilege for which I’m extremely grateful and enables me to say, ‘I am a proud TVA employee.’”