People
New Opportunities:
Stephan T. Haynes, who has been American Electric Power's vice president of risk oversight since January 2002, was named vice president of corporate finance for the company.
Kay G. Priestly was named Entergy Corp.'s vice president of financial issues management. Priestly earlier was managing partner at Arthur Andersen.
Building a system to evaluate the leadership's ability to meet corporate goals.
Nominating committees and CEOs need to ask hard, fundamental questions about their own boards and their board's ability to formulate and govern effective and ethical business strategies. One way to know where you stand is to draw a basic matrix chart. Along the top, list the skill sets your board will require to move the company toward its future goals. Down the left-hand column, list each director. Then begin to check the skills that each current director brings to the board.
Interviews
For Public Utilities Fortnightly's 75th Anniversary CEO issue, the magazine looked to the horizon and asked these new captains about the planned course for their companies, and for an entire industry.
Business & Money
A spate of proposed U.S. tax rule changes soon may open a window of opportunity for certain utilities.
In the mid-1990s, before the rise of the Internet and the fall of Enron changed the calculus of business investing and the regulatory landscape, the historically staid U.S. utility industry began to be viewed as a "growth play." This triggered a global buying spree that led U.S. companies to invest tens of billions of dollars in electricity generation and distribution businesses all over the world.
People
New Positions:
Southern Co. appointed Chris Hobson senior vice president of environmental affairs, reporting to Charles Goodman, the company's newly named senior vice president of environmental policy and research. Hobson currently serves as vice president of environmental affairs for Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power.
People
New Positions:
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, stepped into the role of chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, succeeding Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., who is leaving Congress.
Duke Energy named David Hauser as its permanent CFO. He had been acting CFO since November. He succeeds Robert Brace, who resigned.
Business & Money
Can economies of scale make the industry more stable?
The recent Northeast Blackout framed for regulators and public policy-makers one of the central issues confronting the utility industry: infrastructure reliability and the significant capital investment requirements necessary for improvement. While estimates vary widely, some industry experts currently project that the investment necessary to revitalize and secure the transmission infrastructure in the United States may run in excess of $100 billion.
People
New Opportunities:
Duke Energy made several changes to its executive leadership. Dick Blackburn said he would retire as the company's executive vice president, general counsel, and chief administrative officer. He had been with the company since 1997. Duke also named Bill Easter chairman, president, and CEO of Duke Energy Field Services, replacing Jim Mogg, who moves up to group vice president and chief development officer for Duke Energy.
As Baby Boomers near retirement age, utilities face the challenge of preparing the next generation of leaders.
Human resources managers at many utilities are sounding alarm bells about an impending shortage of skilled personnel-even amid flat industry growth and high unemployment rates.
Financial players and load-serving utilities are looking for power asset deals.
Despite talk of wide bid-ask spreads in the past two tumultuous years, some 60 sales of generation assets have been announced. These sales cover more than 22 GW of capacity, valued on a cash-and-debt basis at approximately $11 billion. A wide variety of buyers and sellers have participated in the sales activity, with a pronounced entry by financial players (investment banks and private equity firms) and load-serving entities (LSEs) looking for capacity to serve their load.