COLUMBUS, Ohio – American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP) is reorganizing its distribution and customer service operations into seven regional utility divisions, placing operational authority in the hands of division presidents and their support staffs.

AEP Texas, led by President and Chief Operating Officer Charles Patton, will include all customers currently served by AEP´s Texas Central and Texas North subsidiaries.  Operations will have headquarters in Corpus Christi, Texas, but external affairs and regulatory services offices will remain in Austin.  AEP Texas will serve approximately 901,000 customers.

"We are creating strong regional utilities to move decision-making responsibility closer to the customers and other external stakeholders," said Michael G. Morris, AEP chairman, president and chief executive officer.

"Charles and his staff will have first-hand knowledge of distribution system conditions in AEP Texas and of customers´ concerns. They will have full authority to make decisions on operation and maintenance of the AEP Texas distribution system to address those concerns."

Prior to the reorganization, both distribution and customer service functioned on a centralized basis, reporting to AEP management in Columbus, Ohio.  State presidents focused primarily on legislative and regulatory issues.

In the new organizational structure, Patton will have authority for distribution operations and a wide range of customer and regulatory relationships.  Generation, transmission, distribution dispatch, call centers and support services will continue to operate on a centralized basis.

"Creating regional organizations for distribution operations and customer service but keeping other operations centralized will strengthen our ties to the local communities while retaining the efficiencies and low costs that are important to our customers and regulators," Morris said.

AEP Texas will have management and staff responsible for distribution operations (including engineering, design and safety), customer services (including customer account management and meter operations), external affairs (including state government relations, environmental affairs, community affairs and communications), regulatory services (including regulatory filings administration and interface with public service commission staffs), and financial (including budgeting and analysis activities and tracking financial performance).

Organizational changes are effective June 1.

Patton will report to Tom Hagan, executive vice president – AEP Utilities-West.

Patton is currently AEP´s Texas state president, with strategic focus is on community relations and public policy matters in the state. Previously, Patton was vice president of governmental affairs. In this capacity, he directed state legislative activity for AEP in Texas. He assumed responsibility for this function in 1996 when he joined Central and South West Inc. CSW merged with AEP in June 2000.

Prior to joining CSW, Patton spent nearly 11 years in the energy and telecommunications business with Houston Industries/Houston Lighting & Power. While there, he worked in regulatory affairs and assisted in the litigation and management of regulatory proceedings. He was a policy specialist in government affairs and a lobbyist in Texas and Washington, D.C. During this time, Patton also served as a company liaison with the United States Energy Association and traveled internationally to discuss government affairs and public relations with Eastern European utilities.

In 1999, he was appointed by former Texas Governor George Bush to serve on the Texas Energy Coordination Council and the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, where he has been reappointed by Governor Rick Perry. In February, Governor Perry appointed Patton to the Texas Energy Planning Council, which was established to advise the governor on a balanced plan for providing the energy needed to fuel the state’s future economic growth.

Patton received a bachelor’s degree (cum laude) from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and a master’s degree from the LBJ School of Public Policy at the University of Texas in Austin. He completed, with honors, special undergraduate programs relating to urban planning and government at Boston University, Harvard and American University.

Other AEP regional utility divisions will be:

·         AEP Ohio, with headquarters in Columbus, will include all of AEP´s customers in Ohio and the northern West Virginia panhandle near Wheeling, W.Va.  AEP Ohio will serve approximately 1.44 million customers.

·         Appalachian Power will include all AEP customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee except those in the Wheeling, W.Va., area.  Operations will have headquarters in Charleston, W.Va., with external affairs and regulatory services offices in Charleston and in Richmond, Va.  Appalachian Power will serve approximately 975,000 customers.

·         Indiana Michigan Power will include all AEP customers in Indiana and Michigan.  Operations will have headquarters in Fort Wayne, Ind., with external affairs offices in Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, and Lansing, Mich. Indiana Michigan Power will serve approximately 575,000 customers.

·         Kentucky Power will include all of AEP´s Kentucky customers and have headquarters in Frankfort, Ky.  Kentucky Power will serve approximately 175,000 customers.

·         Public Service Company of Oklahoma, or PSO, will include all of AEP´s Oklahoma customers.  Operations will have headquarters in Tulsa.  External affairs and regulatory services offices will be in Oklahoma City. PSO will serve approximately 505,000 customers.

·         Southwestern Electric Power, or SWEPCO, will include all AEP customers in Louisiana, Arkansas and northeast Texas.  SWEPCO headquarters will be in Shreveport, La. SWEPCO will serve approximately 439,000 customers.

American Electric Power owns and operates more than 42,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the United States and select international markets and is the largest electricity generator in the U.S.  AEP is also one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, with more than 5 million customers linked to AEP’s 11-state electricity transmission and distribution grid.  The company is based in Columbus, Ohio.

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EDITORS NOTE
 Logos, photographs and other information relevant to the reorganization can be downloaded at www.aep.com/go/regions .
 

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