AKRON, Ohio, June 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- FirstEnergy
Corp. (NYSE: FE) today announced that James
H. Lash, executive vice president of FirstEnergy and
president, FirstEnergy Generation, will retire effective
August 1, 2017 after 28 years with
the company.
"Jim has built a world-class organization through his
longstanding commitment to safety and operational excellence, and
the company has benefited significantly from his many years of
dedicated service," said Charles E.
Jones, FirstEnergy president and chief executive
officer. "His strategic and thoughtful leadership of
FirstEnergy Generation has been greatly appreciated in today's
continually evolving utility industry."
Upon Mr. Lash's retirement, Samuel L.
Belcher, FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC)
president and chief nuclear officer, will report to Mr. Jones and
be the company's primary contact with the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, Nuclear Energy
Institute and other nuclear industry groups. Mr. Belcher
rejoined FirstEnergy in 2012 as vice president and chief operations
officer, having previously served as FENOC fleet operations
director.
Mr. Lash's retirement follows a long and distinguished career in
the nuclear industry. After graduating from the United States Naval Academy, he served as an
officer in the United States Navy
on the nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers USS
Mississippi and USS Long Beach. He was later
employed by Stone and Webster Engineering Corporation before
joining Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in 1989 as safety
engineering manager. In 1994, Mr. Lash was named manager of
design engineering at Davis-Besse and earned his senior reactor
operator license for the plant the same year. By 1996, he had
advanced to plant manager. From 2000 to 2002, he served as a
loaned executive to the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations in
Atlanta, Ga., before returning to
FENOC as Beaver Valley's director of Personnel Development.
In 2003, Mr. Lash was promoted to director of site operations
and two years later, to site vice president. He became senior
vice president of Operations in 2007. In May 2010, he advanced to president, FirstEnergy
Generation and chief nuclear officer and was named to his current
position in 2015.
Mr. Lash is a member of the American Nuclear Society. He
serves on the Executive Committee and Board of the Nuclear Energy
Institute, as well as the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations
Training Accreditation Board. He previously served on the
Board of Directors of The Allegheny Conference and the Electric
Power Research Institute.
FirstEnergy is dedicated to safety, reliability and operational
excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies form one
of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving
customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, West Virginia,
Maryland and New York. The
company's transmission subsidiaries operate more than 24,000 miles
of transmission lines that connect the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic
regions, while its generation subsidiaries control nearly 17,000
megawatts of capacity from a diversified mix of coal, nuclear,
natural gas, hydro and other renewables. Follow FirstEnergy on
Twitter @FirstEnergyCorp or online at www.firstenergycorp.com.
Jim Lash's photo is available for
download on Flickr.
Forward-Looking Statements: This news release includes
forward-looking statements based on information currently available
to management. Such statements are subject to certain risks and
uncertainties. These statements include declarations regarding
management's intents, beliefs and current expectations. These
statements typically contain, but are not limited to, the terms
"anticipate," "potential," "expect," "forecast," "target," "will,"
"intend," "believe," "project," "estimate," "plan" and similar
words. Forward-looking statements involve estimates, assumptions,
known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may
cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially
different from any future results, performance or achievements
expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, which may
include the following: the ability to experience growth in the
Regulated Distribution and Regulated Transmission segments and the
effectiveness of our strategy to transition to a fully regulated
business profile; the accomplishment of our regulatory and
operational goals in connection with our transmission investment
plan, including, but not limited to, our planned transition to
forward-looking formula rates; changes in assumptions regarding
economic conditions within our territories, assessment of the
reliability of our transmission system, or the availability of
capital or other resources supporting identified transmission
investment opportunities; the ability to accomplish or realize
anticipated benefits from strategic and financial goals, including,
but not limited to, the ability to continue to reduce costs and to
successfully execute our financial plans designed to improve our
credit metrics and strengthen our balance sheet through, among
other actions, our cash flow improvement plan and other proposed
capital raising initiatives; success of legislative and regulatory
solutions for generation assets that recognize their environmental
or energy security benefits; the risks and uncertainties associated
with the lack of viable alternative strategies regarding the
Competitive Energy Services (CES) segment, thereby causing
FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. (FES), and possibly FirstEnergy Nuclear
Operating Company (FENOC), to restructure its debt and other
financial obligations with its creditors or seek protection under
United States bankruptcy laws and
the losses, liabilities and claims arising from such bankruptcy
proceeding, including any obligations at FirstEnergy Corp.; the
risks and uncertainties at the CES segment, including FES and its
subsidiaries and FENOC, related to continued depressed wholesale
energy and capacity markets, and the viability and/or success of
strategic business alternatives, such as pending and potential CES
generating unit asset sales, the potential conversion of the
remaining generation fleet from competitive operations to a
regulated or regulated-like construct or the potential need to
deactivate additional generating units; the substantial uncertainty
as to FES' ability to continue as a going concern and substantial
risk that it may be necessary for FES, and possibly FENOC, to seek
protection under United States
bankruptcy laws; the risks and uncertainties associated with
litigation, arbitration, mediation and like proceedings, including,
but not limited to, any such proceedings related to vendor
commitments, such as long-term fuel and transportation agreements;
the uncertainties associated with the deactivation of older
regulated and competitive units, including the impact on vendor
commitments, such as long-term fuel and transportation agreements,
and as it relates to the reliability of the transmission grid, the
timing thereof; the impact of other future changes to the
operational status or availability of our generating units and any
capacity performance charges associated with unit unavailability;
changing energy, capacity and commodity market prices including,
but not limited to, coal, natural gas and oil prices, and their
availability and impact on margins; costs being higher than
anticipated and the success of our policies to control costs and to
mitigate low energy, capacity and market prices; replacement power
costs being higher than anticipated or not fully hedged; our
ability to improve electric commodity margins and the impact of,
among other factors, the increased cost of fuel and fuel
transportation on such margins; the uncertainty of the timing and
amounts of the capital expenditures that may arise in connection
with any litigation, including New Source Review litigation, or
potential regulatory initiatives or rulemakings (including that
such initiatives or rulemakings could result in our decision to
deactivate or idle certain generating units); changes in customers'
demand for power, including, but not limited to, changes resulting
from the implementation of state and federal energy efficiency and
peak demand reduction mandates; economic or weather conditions
affecting future sales and margins such as a polar vortex or other
significant weather events, and all associated regulatory events or
actions; changes in national and regional economic conditions
affecting us, our subsidiaries and/or our major industrial and
commercial customers, and other counterparties with which we do
business, including fuel suppliers; the impact of labor disruptions
by our unionized workforce; the risks associated with cyber-attacks
and other disruptions to our information technology system that may
compromise our generation, transmission and/or distribution
services and data security breaches of sensitive data, intellectual
property and proprietary or personally identifiable information
regarding our business, employees, shareholders, customers,
suppliers, business partners and other individuals in our data
centers and on our networks; the impact of the regulatory process
and resulting outcomes on the matters at the federal level and in
the various states in which we do business including, but not
limited to, matters related to rates; the impact of the federal
regulatory process on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
(FERC)-regulated entities and transactions, in particular FERC
regulation of wholesale energy and capacity markets, including PJM
Interconnection, L.L.C. (PJM) markets and FERC-jurisdictional
wholesale transactions; FERC regulation of cost-of-service rates;
and FERC's compliance and enforcement activity, including
compliance and enforcement activity related to North American
Electric Reliability Corporation's mandatory reliability standards;
the uncertainties of various cost recovery and cost allocation
issues resulting from American Transmission Systems,
Incorporated 's realignment into PJM; the ability to comply
with applicable state and federal reliability standards and energy
efficiency and peak demand reduction mandates; other legislative
and regulatory changes, including the new federal administration's
required review and potential revision of environmental
requirements, including, but not limited to, the effects of the
United States Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan,
Coal Combustion Residuals regulations, Cross-State Air Pollution
Rule and Mercury and Air Toxics Standards programs, including
our estimated costs of compliance, Clean Water Act (CWA) waste
water effluent limitations for power plants, and CWA 316(b) water
intake regulation; adverse regulatory or legal decisions and
outcomes with respect to our nuclear operations (including, but not
limited to, the revocation or non-renewal of necessary licenses,
approvals or operating permits by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
or as a result of the incident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant);
issues arising from the indications of cracking in the shield
building at Davis-Besse; changing market conditions that could
affect the measurement of certain liabilities and the value of
assets held in our Nuclear Decommissioning Trusts, pension trusts
and other trust funds, and cause us and/or our subsidiaries to make
additional contributions sooner, or in amounts that are larger than
currently anticipated; the impact of changes to significant
accounting policies; the impact of any changes in tax laws or
regulations or adverse tax audit results or rulings; the ability to
access the public securities and other capital and credit markets
in accordance with our financial plans, the cost of such capital
and overall condition of the capital and credit markets affecting
us and our subsidiaries; further actions that may be taken by
credit rating agencies that could negatively affect us and/or our
subsidiaries' access to financing, increase the costs thereof,
increase requirements to post additional collateral to support, or
accelerate payments under outstanding commodity positions, letters
of credit and other financial guarantees, and the impact of these
events on the financial condition and liquidity of FirstEnergy
Corp. and/or its subsidiaries, specifically FES and its
subsidiaries; issues concerning the stability of domestic and
foreign financial institutions and counterparties with which we do
business; and the risks and other factors discussed from time to
time in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
filings, and other similar factors. Dividends declared from time to
time on FirstEnergy Corp.'s common stock during any period may in
the aggregate vary from prior periods due to circumstances
considered by FirstEnergy Corp.'s Board of Directors at the time of
the actual declarations. A security rating is not a recommendation
to buy or hold securities and is subject to revision or withdrawal
at any time by the assigning rating agency. Each rating should be
evaluated independently of any other rating. These forward-looking
statements are also qualified by, and should be read in conjunction
with the other cautionary statements and risks that are included in
our filings with the SEC, including but not limited to the most
recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent Quarterly
Reports on Form 10-Q. The foregoing review of factors also should
not be construed as exhaustive. New factors emerge from time to
time, and it is not possible for management to predict all such
factors, nor assess the impact of any such factor on our business
or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may
cause results to differ materially from those contained in any
forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any current
intention to update, except as required by law, any forward-looking
statements contained herein as a result of new information, future
events or otherwise.
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SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.