PGW's CEO to retire in 2011
Thomas E. Knudsen, the Philadelphia Gas Works chief executive who has overseen the city-owned utility's transition from the scandal-plagued 1990s, will retire next year to make way for his deputy.
Thomas E. Knudsen, the Philadelphia Gas Works chief executive who has overseen the city-owned utility's transition from the scandal-plagued 1990s, will retire next year to make way for his deputy.
The Philadelphia Gas Commission is scheduled to vote Tuesday on approving a three-year contract with Knudsen's replacement, Craig White, 54, PGW's chief operating officer.
Knudsen, 68, was a PGW critic and a consultant to the city's consumer advocate before Mayor John F. Street appointed him to the management team in 2000, after PGW's previous managers departed under the cloud of a theft scandal. Knudsen was named acting chief executive in 2001 and was formally appointed in 2002.
In August, Standard & Poor's Rating Services upgraded its assessment of PGW's debt, citing the utility's improved collections record and its "strong management team."
White, whose proposed contract calls for him to get the same $342,000 annual salary Knudsen received, has become the utility's public face in the last year, as PGW has initiated a TV marketing campaign.
White is a second-generation career PGW employee who moved up on the white-collar side of the business in his 30 years there.
His new appointment has already been approved by Mayor Nutter and the Philadelphia Facilities Management Corp., the utility's nonprofit board of directors, said Stephen Hershey, PGW's vice president. It now requires only the gas commission's endorsement.
