Pete Simonich, manager of the Colstrip power plant for PPL Montana, has accepted the position of manager of hydro generation for the company.
His new responsibilities will include managing the company’s 11 hydro generation facilities, two natural-gas-fired plants in Arizona and Illinois, and PPL Montana’s overall environmental and license compliance.
"PPL is committed to our Montana operations. Pete’s role will be to develop a long-term strategy for investment in our facilities that will ensure the safe and reliable production of energy in Montana, as well as to create value in our gas-fired power plants," said Brad Spencer, vice president and chief operating officer for PPL Montana.
Neil Dennehy, manager of projects at Colstrip, has been named to fill Simonich’s position as manager of the Colstrip power plant. Located east of Billings, Colstrip is the second largest coal-fired project west of the Mississippi River. The plant employs about 350 people.
The promotions will be effective Jan. 2, 2005.
"Both Pete and Neil have held several positions of increasing responsibility and leadership at Colstrip for about two decades," Spencer said. "Their experience and established relationships with our employees and the communities we serve make them excellent choices for these positions."
Simonich’s office will be located in Billings, Mont. The hydro generation plants he will oversee have a generating capacity of 576 megawatts and are located along the Missouri River, the Flathead River, the Clark Fork River, the Rosebud Creek and the Madison River.
Simonich began his career at the Colstrip facility in 1981 as a start-up engineer. Prior to his promotion to manager of the plant in 1999, he held a number of supervisory positions, including supervisor-performance engineering, assistant maintenance supervisor and operations manager.
Dennehy began his career at the Colstrip power plant in 1986, also as a start-up engineer. His management experience includes systems engineer, asset manager for turbine generators and asset manager for boilers and associated systems. He became manager of projects, which includes outage planning, last year.
Colstrip’s four generating units are capable of producing a total of up to 2,094 megawatts of electricity. The facility is operated by PPL Montana and is owned by PPL Montana, Portland General Electric Company, Puget Sound Energy, Inc., PacifiCorp, AVISTA Corporation and NorthWestern Energy LLC.
PPL Montana, a subsidiary of PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL), has offices in Billings, Butte and Helena. With about 500 employees, PPL Montana operates its hydro, Colstrip and Corette generating facilities. PPL EnergyPlus, another PPL subsidiary, operates a trading floor in Butte that markets and sells power in the wholesale energy market. More information is available at www.pplmontana.com.