Jim Schauer has spent more than twenty-five years working throughout the natural gas and utility industries. His career has taken him from natural gas marketing and trading to executive leadership, compliance, workforce development, damage prevention, utility locating, leak detection, and industry advocacy.
Today, Jim serves as President of GridHawk Holdings, supporting the strategic alignment of GridHawk and its growing family of businesses. He also leads GridHawk’s Experience Division, bringing together culture, training, compliance, Operator Qualification, safety, PSMS, quality, and workforce development.
But one date carries more meaning for Jim than any title on his résumé:
July 10, 2011: the day he became sober.
Sobriety did not erase Jim’s past, nor did it instantly create the career that followed. It gave him the clarity, honesty, consistency, and self-awareness to become a better version of the person and leader he already had the potential to be.
A Successful Career, and a Hidden Struggle
Like many people struggling with alcohol, Jim did not fit the image most people associate with alcoholism.
He was working. He was producing. He was building relationships and advancing professionally. From the outside, much of his life appeared successful.
Jim describes his experience through what he calls the 85%-13%-2% rule.
Eighty-five percent of the time, most people would not have known there was a problem. He could perform his job, meet expectations, build relationships, and appear completely functional.
Thirteen percent of the time, his behavior became excessive, impulsive, or unpredictable.
The remaining two percent represented the moments that eventually forced him to acknowledge that alcohol was no longer simply part of his lifestyle. It had become a serious concern.
His experience is an important reminder that success and struggle can exist in the same person at the same time.
When Alcohol Became Part of the Culture
Jim grew up in Minnesota and graduated from Winona State University with a degree in mass communication. His career eventually took him to Houston, where he worked in the natural gas commodity and trading environment.
The culture was fast-paced, demanding, competitive, and highly social. Alcohol was often present at lunches, dinners, client events, conferences, and after-hours gatherings.
Jim does not blame Houston, the energy industry, or the people around him for his alcoholism. He is clear that the responsibility for his choices belongs to him. However, he also recognizes how easily a culture can normalize unhealthy behavior, especially when someone continues to perform professionally.
At one point, Jim arrived at work visibly struggling after drinking the night before. Rather than being encouraged to step away and address the problem, he was advised to have a drink so he could get through the workday.
The person giving that advice was not trying to harm him. The priority in that moment was getting a high-performing employee back to work.
Looking back, Jim sees the experience differently.
It demonstrates how easily organizations can focus on someone’s production while overlooking the person producing it.
July 10, 2011
Eventually, Jim reached a personal crossroads.
He understood that continuing to drink would eventually cost him his career, his relationships, his health, and possibly his life.
On July 10, 2011, he chose another path.
He does not describe early sobriety as easy or glamorous. It included embarrassment, fear, uncertainty, and the difficult process of confronting himself honestly.
But it also created hope.
About a year into sobriety, Jim made another important decision: he would no longer hide that part of his life.
The response surprised him.
People did not reject him. Many supported him. Others quietly shared that they were struggling themselves or worried about someone they loved.
What Jim once viewed as something that could damage his career gradually became one of the most meaningful parts of his leadership story.
What Sobriety Made Possible
Jim had a meaningful career before becoming sober. What changed after sobriety was the depth, consistency, and purpose behind his leadership.
In the years following July 10, 2011, he went on to serve as:
- Chief Executive Officer of an LNG company
- Vice President at Energy Worldnet
- Co-host of the natural gas industry podcast Coffee with Jim & James
- A board member of the Florida Natural Gas Association
- President of GridHawk Holdings
- Executive leader of GridHawk’s Experience Division
He has also become a recognized advocate for Pipeline Safety Management Systems, workforce development, damage prevention, leadership culture, and creating more inclusive professional environments.
Jim does not view these accomplishments as proof that sobriety guarantees professional success. He views them as evidence of what can become possible when a person is clear, present, honest, and willing to change.
The Question Is Not Always How Much
One of Jim’s central messages is that alcohol problems cannot always be measured by the number of drinks someone consumes.
A person may drink daily. Another may drink only periodically but experience serious consequences when they do. Someone else may remain professionally productive while privately knowing that alcohol occupies too much of their thinking, behavior, or emotional life.
The question is not simply, “Do I drink more than other people?”
The more meaningful questions may be:
Is alcohol creating concern in my life? Is it affecting the person I want to be? Have I tried to change but found that I cannot do it alone?
Jim believes change must ultimately begin with the individual. Family members, friends, employers, and colleagues can offer support, but they cannot force another person into lasting recovery.
Creating a Different Kind of Industry Event
Jim’s advocacy has expanded beyond sharing his personal story.
Along with industry partners, he helped develop the Zero Proof Happy Hour at the American Gas Association’s Spring Operations Conference.
The event provides a professional networking environment without alcohol, and without requiring anyone to explain why they are not drinking.
The idea is not to criticize people who choose to drink. It is to create an equally welcoming choice for those who do not.
More than 400 people attended the Zero Proof event in Tampa.
Some were in recovery. Some were supporting someone in recovery. Some were sober-curious. Others simply wanted a different type of networking environment.
Jim believes companies and industry associations should offer meaningful alcohol-free choices at conferences, dinners, celebrations, and recruiting events.
A nonalcoholic option should not feel like an afterthought. It should feel like part of the hospitality.
What He Says When Someone Offers Him a Drink
Jim’s approach is direct and uncomplicated.
Most people respond positively. Some apologize because they did not know. Jim reassures them that no apology is necessary.
He does not expect the world to stop drinking because he became sober. He simply knows that he does not drink.
That confidence developed over time, but today it is no longer an uncomfortable disclosure. It is part of who he is.
A Message to the Person Struggling Quietly
Jim knows there are successful professionals sitting in executive meetings, operating equipment, serving customers, raising families, and appearing completely fine while privately wondering whether they have a problem.
His message to them is straightforward:
He also emphasizes that no one has to recover alone.
Support may come through treatment, recovery programs, faith, counseling, family, trusted friends, peer groups, or others who have walked the same path. The route may look different for each person, but asking for help is not weakness.
It is often the first honest act of recovery.
Fifteen Years, and Still Moving Forward
Jim celebrated fifteen years of continuous sobriety on July 10, 2026.
He does not present himself as someone who has everything figured out. He sees sobriety as an ongoing commitment to honesty, gratitude, accountability, and growth.
It has shaped the way he leads, the way he views employees, and the way he responds when someone may be struggling.
Jim believes that everything good in his life (from his sobriety to his family, his career, and every opportunity he has been given) is a gift of God’s grace. He gives all the glory to Jesus Christ for transforming his life and sustaining him each day.
It has also reinforced one of his strongest leadership beliefs:
People matter beyond what they produce.
A strong organization does not ignore performance. But it also does not sacrifice the human being behind the performance.
Jim’s professional story did not begin when he became sober.
But sobriety gave him the opportunity to write the next chapters with greater clarity, purpose, and authenticity.
What This Means For Your Next Company Event
Here is where Jim’s story stops being a personal profile and becomes a business problem.
In August 2025, Gallup reported that only 54 percent of American adults say they drink alcohol. That is the lowest figure in the nearly ninety years Gallup has tracked the question, and it arrived after three straight years of decline: 62 percent in 2023, then 58 percent in 2024, then 54. Among adults under thirty five the number sits at 50 percent, which means younger workers now report drinking less than their middle-aged colleagues for the first time on record. Even the people who still drink are drinking less, with the weekly average falling to 2.8 drinks from 3.8 the year before.
For the first time since Gallup began asking in 2001, a majority of Americans, 53 percent, now say one or two drinks a day is bad for your health.
Now hold that against a standard industry conference. The open bar. The client dinner. The hospitality suite. The recruiting mixer where the real offer conversation happens over a second glass of wine.
You are running an event format built for a drinking population that no longer exists at the rate it used to. And roughly half the room is quietly working around it.
This is why Jim Schauer’s Zero Proof Happy Hour is not charity work. It is early. He built a room the market was already asking for, and four hundred people walked into it in Tampa.
For anyone who recruits, hosts, or sets culture, the open bar has stopped being a neutral default. It is a signal. It tells every candidate in recovery, every candidate who is pregnant, every candidate who is sober curious, and every candidate on medication precisely how much thought you have given to the people you are trying to hire.
The cheapest culture upgrade available to you this year costs almost nothing: put something good in the non-alcoholic column and stop making people explain themselves.
The Recruiter’s Note: What Hiring Managers Get Wrong
By Cathy Trinh
I have placed executives for twenty six years. I am also seven plus years sober, and my last drink was October 22, 2018. So let me be blunt about what this story means for the people who hire.
Somewhere in your pipeline right now is a candidate with a gap on the resume, or a job change that does not quite add up, or a two year stretch they get vague about. Some of those people were falling apart. Others were putting themselves back together. From the outside, on paper, those two things look identical.
Jim Schauer’s resume between 2009 and 2011 would have looked like a risk. His resume from 2011 forward includes a CEO seat, a national platform, a board appointment, and a company presidency.
You do not get the second one without the first one.
Executives who have been through something and come out the other side with language for it are not damaged inventory. They are the ones who know exactly what they are made of, because they were there when it got tested. Jim said sobriety gave him a realistic look at himself. Ask yourself how many people on your own leadership bench could honestly claim the same.
This is why the Sober Success Series exists, and why we ran Quan Huynh’s story before this one. The pattern repeats: the resume gap is almost never the risk. The unexamined life is.
Fifteen years. One person at every conference. Four hundred people in a room in Tampa with nothing stronger than iced tea in their hands.
That is what recovering out loud builds. And the man built all of it after the day everyone would have told him his career was finished.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Jim Schauer?
Jim Schauer is President of GridHawk Holdings, supporting the strategic alignment of GridHawk and its family of businesses, and executive leader of GridHawk’s Experience Division. He has more than twenty five years in the natural gas and utility industries, previously serving as CEO of an LNG company and as a Vice President at Energy Worldnet. He also co-hosted the energy industry podcast Coffee with Jim & James and sits on the board of the Florida Natural Gas Association.
When did Jim Schauer get sober?
July 10, 2011. He celebrated fifteen years of continuous sobriety on July 10, 2026. Every senior leadership title on his resume came after that date.
What does the 85%-13%-2% rule mean?
It is Jim Schauer’s own description of his drinking years. Eighty-five percent of the time he appeared completely functional and most people would not have known there was a problem. Thirteen percent of the time his behavior became excessive, impulsive, or unpredictable. The remaining two percent represented the moments that forced him to acknowledge alcohol had become a serious concern.
Can you be a successful executive in recovery?
Jim Schauer became a chief executive officer, a vice president at a national compliance platform, a board member, and a company president, all after getting sober. He is careful to say this is not proof that sobriety guarantees professional success. He views it as evidence of what becomes possible when a person is clear, present, honest, and willing to change.
What is a Zero Proof Happy Hour?
A Zero Proof Happy Hour is an alcohol-free networking event held during an industry conference. Jim Schauer helped develop one at the American Gas Association’s Spring Operations Conference. More than 400 people attended the event in Tampa. The format lets people connect professionally without drinking and without explaining why they are not.
How do you turn down a drink at a business event?
Jim Schauer’s approach is direct and uncomplicated. He thanks the person, says how long he has been sober, and orders a soda, an iced tea, or something alcohol-free. Most people respond positively, and some apologize because they did not know. He reassures them that no apology is necessary.
Are fewer professionals drinking at work events?
Yes. Gallup reported in August 2025 that 54 percent of American adults say they drink alcohol, the lowest rate in nearly ninety years of tracking, down from 62 percent in 2023. Among adults under thirty five the figure is 50 percent. A majority of Americans now say one or two drinks a day is bad for their health, the first time that view has been the majority position since Gallup began asking in 2001. Alcohol-free options at conferences and recruiting events are shifting from a courtesy to an expectation.
Should an executive disclose sobriety at work?
There is no universal answer, and disclosure is a personal decision with real professional considerations. Jim Schauer decided about a year into sobriety that he would no longer hide that part of his life, and he describes the response as largely supportive. What he once viewed as something that could damage his career became one of the most meaningful parts of his leadership story.
Where can someone get help for alcohol or substance use?
The SAMHSA National Helpline is free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at 1-800-662-4357. It provides referrals to local treatment facilities, support groups, and community organizations. More information is available through SAMHSA.
If you or someone on your team is struggling with alcohol or substance use, the SAMHSA National Helpline is free, confidential, and available 24/7 at 1-800-662-4357.
The Sober Success Series covers executives who rebuilt their careers on the other side of recovery. No shame, no anonymity requirements, no sanitizing. If that is your story, or your colleague’s, we want to hear it.
Nominate a Leader →Cathy Trinh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Recruiter Hustle, OC/LA’s no-filter media platform for talent, finance, and recruiting professionals. This interview was conducted by video on July 27, 2026, and has been condensed and edited for clarity. Jim Schauer reviewed and approved this article before publication.
Heart. Human. Hustle.
Cathy
Twenty-five years across the natural gas and utility industries, from trading floors to executive leadership. Former CEO of an LNG company, board member of the Florida Natural Gas Association, and co-host of the podcast Coffee with Jim & James. Sober since July 10, 2011, he speaks openly on recovery at industry conferences and helped create the Zero Proof Happy Hour at the American Gas Association.
GridHawk → LinkedIn →
Chief Talent Strategist & Editor-in-Chief | 26-year global recruiting veteran, #1 bestselling author, cancer survivor & humanitarian. Founder of Recruiter Hustle, OC/LA's no-filter media platform for talent, finance & recruiting professionals. Heart. Human. Hustle.