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The first time I meet Lynn Good, she's tucked behind a set of doors with her bags, calmly waiting for the hotel's fire alarms to stop bleating.

She's at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit in California to speak, even though, she says, "I don't think of myself as a powerful woman."

It occurs to me later that the unexpected run-in is a fitting introduction to a woman whose corporate ascent has been marked by some emergency detours.

"There's nothing about Lynn Good at age 30 or age 35 that would have said, 'I am setting my sights on being a CEO,' " she says.

But at age 55, she is — at Duke Energy, the nation's largest utility, based on market value. Good's now a leader in a sector where female executives are still a rarity. And she's become the face of the company while it's grappling with some very public challenges.

'I Don't Even Think About It'

Good, the daughter of two educators, grew up in Ohio. It was her father, a math teacher, who encouraged her to take an unconventional path for women, she says.

"He actually sat with me on the college catalog and helped me pick something that was the equivalent of computer science," she says. "I had never programmed anything. I had never seen a computer when I went to college."

Good is used to being the lone woman. She was one of the first women in the Midwest to make partner at accounting firm Arthur Andersen.

"I've had plenty of mentors, but not many women [mentors]. So I'm generationally probably on the early part of the ascent of women into leadership roles," she says.

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Her two-decade career at Andersen came to an abrupt end after an obstruction-of-justice charge against the firm effectively shut it down in 2002.

Good found her footing, eventually becoming chief financial officer at Duke in 2009. Then, 15 months ago, her predecessor left as part of a settlement with regulators over the company's handling of a merger.

Now, as CEO, Good is surrounded by male peers.

"It doesn't make me uncomfortable. I don't even think about it, to be honest with you," she says.

But, she says she thinks women tend to focus on communication, relationships and connecting — and that that is proving an asset, because the spotlight is on her. "I become the face of the company, and that's a responsibility," Good says.

Tested By A Toxic Spill

Especially now, as Good deals with her latest challenge: a toxic spill of pollutants that happened just months after she took office. A burst pipe in North Carolina left tens of thousands of tons of toxic coal ash waste into the Dan River — a source of drinking water for more than 50,000 people in southern Virginia.

The spill is Good's toughest test yet. The company faces a federal grand jury investigation and lawsuits seeking further pollution cleanup.

"I don't think Duke has ever had its reputation in North Carolina so damaged," says Frank Holleman, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, which is suing Duke Energy.

Holleman says Duke plays an outsized role in his community, providing power to almost all of the Carolinas. He says Good — who is relatively unknown to the public — could make a name for herself and restore Duke's reputation.

"If she could get out front of this issue, make a definitive, clear decision, she could create an identity for herself and for her company very quickly," Holleman says.

But so far, he says, that hasn't happened. Last month, Duke Energy announced a $10 million fund that will be used to promote clean water across five states. Holleman calls the move both deeply underfunded and hypocritical.

"It was almost like, 'Physician, heal thyself.' It was an embarrassing public-relations effort," he says.

Duke says it is cooperating with the ongoing federal grand jury investigation. And for her part, Good denies she's prioritized image — hers or Duke's — over dealing with the damage.

"My focus has been ensuring that Duke is doing the right thing, we have the right resources, we're making the right adjustments, we're addressing the issue," she says.

Good says her worst days on the job so far have come when she's felt Duke has been accused of wrongdoing.

"I think about trust and confidence as something that you earn every day, and we will keep at it, earning it every day," she says.

"And I hope that a year from now or two years from now, we're not talking at all about Dan River, but we're talking about the great service that Duke delivers to its customers and the commitment we have to the communities."

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Duke Energy

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If you're mid-flight and the movie is terrible and the airline magazine crossword puzzle has already been done by someone else, the Sky Mall catalog is the time-killer of last resort for the bored, boxed-in passenger.

Our Best-Selling Hot Dog Clock!

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"What time is it it's hot dog time! Each of these all-beef hot dogs contains a digital clock, accurate down to the minute. Tick-tock it's hot dog time." St. Martin's Press hide caption

itoggle caption St. Martin's Press

"What time is it it's hot dog time! Each of these all-beef hot dogs contains a digital clock, accurate down to the minute. Tick-tock it's hot dog time."

St. Martin's Press

SkyMall sells items that, under normal circumstances, you might never consider — like say, adult-sized, unisex, one-piece Superman pajamas. But somehow, mid-flight, you find yourself wondering: Do I need a dog bed designed to look like an NCAA stadium?

Eight years ago, the San Francisco-based comedy group Kasper Hauser published Sky Maul: Happy Crap You Can Buy From The Plane, a catalog full of products like the "Pepper Self Spray" and the "Da Vinci Code Decoder Ring." And now comes Sky Maul 2: Where America Buys His Stuff. Kasper Hauser members Rob Baedeker and James and John Reichmuth join NPR's Robert Siegel to discuss some products that you can almost certainly live without.

Noise-Free Wind Chimes

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"One of the main drawbacks of wind chimes is the irritating sound that they make. ... Our patented quiet wind chimes use noise-canceling technology to take the 'chime' out of wind chime ... giving you peace of mind." St. Martin's Press hide caption

itoggle caption St. Martin's Press

"One of the main drawbacks of wind chimes is the irritating sound that they make. ... Our patented quiet wind chimes use noise-canceling technology to take the 'chime' out of wind chime ... giving you peace of mind."

St. Martin's Press

Interview Highlights

On their home improvement products, like the Cave Repainting Set and the Condo Pony

James Reichmuth: You may know what a terrible graffiti problem they had in the Pleistocene Era. And many of Europe's best caves have been defaced by stick figures. ... We have come up with a cave repainting set which just allows you, very handily and easily, to paint over these old caves and get them baby, room, or man cave-ready. Folks, those horses are just doodles — lighten up.

Rob Baedeker: Designer pets are all the rage these days. Ours is called the Condo Pony. It's a little horse that just kind of clomps around the condo. The motto is: Condo doesn't have to mean no pony no more.

The Forever Diaper

"Never needs changing. Not once. ... Put this on when they're born, sit back, and watch the joy that every baby gives off." St. Martin's Press hide caption

itoggle caption St. Martin's Press

On the Forever Diaper

James Reichmuth: One of the things we're most excited about right now for new parents — and we worked with Russian scientists here, using blimp technology — is a — what we call — Forever Diaper. And that's a diaper that you put on at birth and it, technically, can stay on until early adolescence. We say: let's take diapers off the table.

On the Personality Alert Bracelet

Rob Baedeker: Most of us get into relationships of many types and it takes a long time to figure out the other person's character flaws. So we've designed a personality alert bracelet. It lets first responders or first dates really know about your issues. Whether you are a narcissist ... a martyr ... a baby ... it just cuts to the chase and just makes things much more efficient.

James Reichmuth: I wear one of these. I'm wearing one now. It just says: Tuna makes me sleepy. ... It's just something that you want people that are close to you to know. So I wouldn't tuna eat before an interview, for example, and I did not.

On SkyMall sometimes being funnier than SkyMaul

James Reichmuth: It is hard to out-SkyMall SkyMall.

Rob Baedeker: Reality is a little bit ahead of us. ... It's that American tradition of giving you things you never knew you needed.

St. Martin's Press

To clamp down on health care costs, a growing number of employers and insurers are putting limits on how much they'll pay for certain medical services such as knee replacements, lab tests and complex imaging.

A recent study found that savings from such moves may be modest, however, and some analysts question whether "reference pricing," as it's called, is good for consumers.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), which administers the health insurance benefits for 1.4 million state workers, retirees and their families, has one of the more established reference pricing systems.

More than three years ago, CalPERS began using reference pricing for elective knee and hip replacements, two common procedures for which hospital prices varied widely without discernible differences in quality, says Ann Boynton, who helps set benefits policies at CalPERS.

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Working with Anthem Blue Cross, the CalPERS set $30,000 as the reference price for those two surgeries in its preferred provider organization plan.

Members who get surgery at one of the 52 hospitals that charge $30,000 or less pay only their plan's regular cost-sharing. If member choose to use an in-network hospital that charges more than the reference price, however, they're on the hook for the entire amount over $30,000, and the extra spending doesn't count toward their annual maximum out-of-pocket limit, Boynton says.

"We're not worried about people not getting the care they need," says Boynton. "They have access to good hospitals; they're just getting it at a reasonable price."

In two years, CalPERS saved nearly $6 million on those two procedures, and members saved $600,000 in lower cost sharing, according to research published last year by James C. Robinson, a professor of health economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Berkeley Center for Health Technology. Most of the savings came from price reductions at expensive hospitals.

The agency recently set caps on how much it would spend for cataract surgery, colonoscopies and arthroscopic surgery, Boynton says.

Those who have studied reference pricing say it is most appropriate for common, non-emergency procedures or tests that vary widely in price but are generally comparable in quality. Research has generally shown that higher prices for medical services don't mean their quality is higher. Setting a reference price steers consumers to high-quality doctors, hospitals, labs and imaging centers that perform well for the price, proponents say.

Others point out that reference pricing doesn't necessarily save employers a lot of money, however. A study released earlier this month by the National Institute for Health Care Reform examined the 2011 claims data for 528,000 autoworkers and their dependents, both active and retired. It analyzed roughly 350 high-volume and/or high-priced inpatient and ambulatory medical services that reference pricing might reasonably be applied to.

The overall potential savings was 5 percent, the study found.

"It was surprising that even with all that pricing variation, reference pricing doesn't have a more dramatic impact on spending," says Chapin White, a senior policy researcher at RAND and lead author of the study.

Even though the results may be modest, a growing number of very large companies are incorporating reference pricing, according to benefits consultant Mercer's annual employer health insurance survey. The percentage of employers with 10,000 or more employees that used reference pricing grew from 10 percent in 2012 to 15 percent in 2013, the survey found. Thirty percent said they were considering adding reference pricing, the survey found. Among employers with 500 or fewer workers, adoption was flat at 10 percent in 2013, compared with 11 percent in 2012.

This spring, the Obama administration said that large group and self-insured health plans could use reference pricing.

The health law sets limits on how much consumers have to pay out of pocket annually for in-network care before insurance picks up the whole tab — in 2015, it's $6,600 for an individual and $13,200 for a family plan. But if consumers choose providers whose prices are higher than a plan's reference price, those amounts don't count toward the out-of-pocket maximum, the administration guidance said.

Leaving consumers on the hook for amounts over the reference price needlessly drags them into the battle between providers and health plans over prices, says White.

"You expect the health plan to do a few things: negotiate reasonable prices with providers, and not to enter into network contracts with providers who provide bad quality care," White says. "Reference pricing is kind of an admission that health plans have failed on one or both of those fronts."

health care costs

Affordable Care Act

Health Insurance

Now that we've entered the "craft cocktail" era, drinks with double-digit price tags are just par for the course. And in many cities, there's a decent chance that your fancy craft drink now comes with a large, crystal-clear cube or rectangle that melts unhurriedly in your glass. That's right: Artisanal ice is a thing.

Excuse me? That's what we said when the Washington City Paper reported that a restaurant called Second State will charge $1 per "hand-cut rock" if you order from its rye whiskey menu. (If you order one of the cocktails, which range from $11 to $17, the fancy cubes are included gratis.)

Perhaps you're having the same thought: Is there something wrong with plain old regular ice? Was the ice industry really crying out for disruption?

Well, not exactly. Turns out the rise of artisanal ice probably has more to do with bars trying to justify their high-priced cocktails with one extra perk: ice like you've never seen it before.

"If you're gonna get a drink that's $15, it better have the best ice," says Joe Ambrose, a bartender at the W Hotel who co-founded Favourite Ice, the company that's hand-chiseling frozen water for about 30 restaurants and caterers in the D.C. area. There are several similar fancy ice ventures around the country.

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So what exactly makes this ice better? Ambrose says it's a combination of aesthetics and practicality.

Regular ice is cloudy because of the minerals like calcium in tap water, Ambrose says. So he filters water, and then puts it in a big machine made by Clinebell — the same machine that makes those huge blocks for ice sculptures. The machine churns out 200- to 300-pound blocks of crystal-clear ice. Ambrose or his partner, Owen Thomson, director of the beverage program at Range restaurant, then cut up these giant blocks into 25-pound slabs or 2-inch cubes with a band saw.

"It's hard work: You're dealing with ice and slippery surfaces, and working with a blade that's made for cutting up cows," says Ambrose. "It's a little scary, especially when the blades wear down and pop and metal goes flying across the room. Oh, and your hands get really cold."

Sounds like fun, right? And keep in mind that Ambrose and Thomson both have full-time jobs on top of filling their growing list of ice orders, which requires them to drive 45 minutes to Germantown, Md., daily to make and cut ice.

"It's lucrative, but we're not getting rich off it," says Ambrose.

Artisanal ice is pretty, but the real selling point is that the super-sized cubes melt more slowly, which gives you more time to enjoy the flavors in your fancy drink.

"The problem with lots of small ice cubes is that in 10 to 15 minutes, your drink tastes like watered-down booze — it doesn't taste how it's supposed to taste anymore," he says.

This flaw in regular ice is apparently not lost upon a growing number of drinkers who've experienced artisanal ice.

"I have managers who are telling me that when they run out of our ice, customers are getting upset," says Ambrose. "I'm like, 'It's just ice, bro.' "

cocktails

cocktail culture

alcohol