COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- American Electric
Power's (NYSE: AEP) Board of Directors has elected Nicholas K. Akins chief executive officer,
effective Nov. 12. Akins, who will
retain the position of president he has held since Jan. 1, will replace Michael G. Morris when Morris retires as CEO
Nov. 11. Akins, 51, has also been
elected to AEP's Board of Directors.
Morris, who will be 65 on Nov. 11,
will continue as executive chairman of AEP's Board of Directors
through Dec. 31, then serve as
non-executive chairman of the board. Morris joined the company
Jan. 1, 2004, as chairman, president
and CEO. Carl English will retire as
vice chairman, effective Dec. 31.
"I'm excited by the opportunity to help continue the
extraordinary legacy of AEP," Akins said. "This company has had
more than a century of strong financial performance, engineering
and operational excellence and public policy leadership. I look
forward to working with our talented management team as we build on
these characteristics to continue to provide quality service to our
customers and an attractive return to our investors."
"Nick will be an excellent leader for AEP," Morris said. "I've
had that honor for the last eight years as our company, our
industry and our nation have faced challenges ranging from economic
to national public policy to technology. From a company
perspective, we have worked to address each challenge in a way that
best benefits our customers and our shareholders. But our nation
faces difficult decisions on its energy future, decisions that will
have a significant impact on our company and industry. Nick is the
right person to lead AEP to continued success in this ever-changing
environment."
Prior to being elected president, Akins served as executive vice
president – generation for AEP, responsible for all generation
activities of AEP's approximately 38,000 megawatts of generation
resources. This included the engineering, construction and
operations of fossil and hydro generation, nuclear generation,
fuels procurement, emissions and logistics, and other resource
initiatives such as new generation, environmental retrofits, and
carbon capture and storage. Akins also was responsible for the
commercial operations, marketing and trading functions of the
company.
Previously, he was president and chief operating officer for
Southwestern Electric Power Company, an AEP utility serving
approximately 439,000 customers in Louisiana, Arkansas and northeast Texas. Named to this position in 2004, he had
authority for distribution operations and a wide range of customer
and regulatory relationships.
Prior to this, Akins was vice president – energy marketing
services, responsible for directing the activities of Market
Development, including the transmission marketing and services
functions, and Energy Delivery External Affairs including community
affairs, economic development, and advocacy for regulatory and
legislative positions within Energy Delivery. Akins also was vice
president – industry restructuring for AEP, responsible for
enterprise-wide program management for restructuring initiatives in
preparation for customer choice in AEP's various jurisdictions.
Before Central and South West Corp.'s (CSW) merger with AEP, he
served in various director and manager roles within CSW and its
operating companies involving mergers and acquisitions, industry
restructuring, fuels, system dispatch operations and system
planning.
Akins received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in
1982 from Louisiana Tech University in
Ruston and a master's degree in
electrical engineering in 1986 also from Louisiana Tech. He has completed executive
management programs at Louisiana State
University, the University of
Idaho and the Reactor Technology Course for Utility
Executives at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
Akins is a registered professional engineer in Texas. He currently serves as vice chairman of
the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and on the boards of
the Mid-Ohio Food Bank, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, the
Wexner Center for the Arts and the National Association of
Manufacturers.
American Electric Power is one of the largest electric utilities
in the United States, delivering
electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP
ranks among the nation's largest generators of electricity, owning
nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also
owns the nation's largest electricity transmission system, a nearly
39,000-mile network that includes more 765-kilovolt extra-high
voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems
combined. AEP's transmission system directly or indirectly serves
about 10 percent of the electricity demand in the Eastern
Interconnection, the interconnected transmission system that covers
38 eastern and central U.S. states and eastern Canada, and approximately 11 percent of the
electricity demand in ERCOT, the transmission system that covers
much of Texas. AEP's utility units
operate as AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and West
Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky
Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power
Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana and east Texas). AEP's headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio.
This report made by American Electric Power contains
forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Although AEP believes that
its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, any such
statements may be influenced by factors that could cause actual
outcomes and results to be materially different from those
projected. Among the factors that could cause actual results to
differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are:
Electric load and customer growth; weather conditions, including
storms; available sources and costs of, and transportation for,
fuels and the creditworthiness of fuel suppliers and transporters;
availability of generating capacity and the performance of AEP's
generating plants; the ability to recover regulatory assets and
stranded costs in connection with deregulation; the ability to
recover increases in fuel and other energy costs through regulated
or competitive electric rates; the ability to build or acquire
generating capacity when needed at acceptable prices and terms and
to recover those costs through applicable rate cases; new
legislation, litigation and government regulation including
requirements for reduced emissions of sulfur, nitrogen, mercury,
carbon and other substances; timing and resolution of pending and
future rate cases, negotiations and other regulatory decisions
(including rate or other recovery for new investments, transmission
service and environmental compliance); resolution of litigation
(including pending Clean Air Act enforcement actions and disputes
arising from the bankruptcy of Enron Corp.); AEP's ability to
constrain its operation and maintenance costs; AEP's ability to
sell assets at acceptable prices and on other acceptable terms,
including rights to share in earnings derived from the assets
subsequent to their sale; the economic climate and growth in its
service territory and changes in market demand and demographic
patterns; inflationary trends; its ability to develop and execute a
strategy based on a view regarding prices of electricity, natural
gas and other energy-related commodities; changes in the
creditworthiness and number of participants in the energy trading
market; changes in the financial markets, particularly those
affecting the availability of capital and AEP's ability to
refinance existing debt at attractive rates; actions of rating
agencies, including changes in the ratings of debt; volatility and
changes in markets for electricity, natural gas and other
energy-related commodities; changes in utility regulation,
including membership and integration into regional transmission
structures; accounting pronouncements periodically issued by
accounting standard-setting bodies; the performance of AEP's
pension and other postretirement benefit plans; prices for power
that AEP generates and sells at wholesale; changes in technology,
particularly with respect to new, developing or alternative sources
of generation and other risks and unforeseen events, including
wars, the effects of terrorism (including increased security
costs), embargoes and other catastrophic events.
SOURCE American Electric Power