Suskie to Join Southwest Power Pool
Other Organizational Changes Announced
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Paul Suskie is joining Southwest Power Pool (SPP) as General Counsel and Senior Vice President – Regulatory Policy effective January 3, 2011. Suskie previously served as Chairman of the Arkansas Public Service Commission and served on SPP’s Regional State Committee. Prior to joining the Commission, Suskie served as City Attorney of North Little Rock, Arkansas, handling a variety of utility issues for the state’s largest municipal utility. Suskie serves as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Arkansas Army National Guard and is a veteran of both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is succeeding Les Dillahunty, who is retiring later in 2011.
As part of the organization’s commitment to continuous improvement, other changes to the leadership structure are being made. Effective January 3, Lanny Nickell, currently Vice President of Operations, will assume the role of Vice President of Engineering reporting to Carl Monroe, SPP’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Bruce Rew, currently Vice President of Engineering, will assume responsibilities as Vice President of Operations. These moves align the company’s various engineering functions under singular officer leadership. Stacy Duckett, currently General Counsel, will head a newly formed group as Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer overseeing compliance, internal audit, market monitoring, and will also serve as Chief Security Officer. She will continue in her current role as Corporate Secretary. Michael Desselle, Vice President of Process Integrity, will continue to oversee all process integrity functions and will begin formation of a new initiative focusing more effort on SPP’s role in standards development.
SPP President and CEO Nick Brown said, “I’m very excited about the new strengths and thinking this restructuring will bring to our Staff, Members and customers. Les Dillahunty’s leadership in our industry is absolutely remarkable and his leadership as an officer of SPP has been nothing short of stellar where he has been the driver of accomplishing many strategic initiatives.”
About Southwest Power Pool, Inc.
Southwest Power Pool, Inc. is a group of 58 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.