Barbara Sugg elected as SPP Vice President of Information Technology
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The Southwest Power Pool, Inc. (SPP) Board of Directors elected Barbara Sugg as Vice President of Information Technology. This is a new position, created due to the increasingly critical role IT plays in advancing SPP’s mission and objectives. As Vice President of IT, Sugg will direct the development, architecture, implementation, monitoring, support, security, and telecommunications services provided by SPP to its members and customers. She is responsible for establishing IT strategy and policies and developing the IT leadership team; the department has over 100 employees. Sugg will continue to participate in organizational group meetings and represent SPP on the ISO/RTO Council’s IT Committee.
Sugg has 20 years of IT experience in the electric utility industry. She joined SPP in 1997 as a Senior IT Specialist, focused on application development and support for computer systems including tariff administration, reliability coordination, and regional energy scheduling. She has been a member of the SPP management team since 1999, and became Director of Information Technology in 2006.
Sugg earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1986. She worked as an application developer at Louisiana Energy and Power Authority from 1990-1997. In that role, she was responsible for interfacing systems and exchanging data with SPP, managing the energy management system and power flow analysis tool, and performing daily maintenance and support for the utility’s computer systems.
Sugg represents SPP on the University of Arkansas Research Institute’s Board of Advisors. She also serves as a Commissioner on the Ferncrest Property Owners Improvement District and is the Treasurer/Secretary for the Iron Mountain Yacht Club. She volunteers for the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas, Lutheran High School, and The Church at Rock Creek. In her spare time, Barbara plays competitive tennis and participates in yacht racing.
About Southwest Power Pool, Inc.
Southwest Power Pool, Inc. is a group of 56 members in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas that serve more than five million customers. Membership is comprised of investor-owned utilities, municipal systems, generation and transmission cooperatives, state authorities, wholesale generators, power marketers, and independent transmission companies. SPP's footprint includes 29 balancing authorities, 50,575 miles of transmission lines, and 370,000 square miles of service territory. SPP was a founding member of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation in 1968, and was designated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as a Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) in 2004 and a Regional Entity (RE) in 2007. As an RTO, SPP ensures reliable supplies of power, adequate transmission infrastructure, and competitive wholesale prices of electricity. The SPP RE oversees compliance enforcement and reliability standards development. Read more fast facts or watch a video about SPP.