Williams to lead Florida’s nonprofit, wholesale electricity supplier for municipal utilities

ORLANDO, Fla., Aug. 26, 2016 – Florida Municipal Power Agency (FMPA) has selected Jacob A. Williams as its next General Manger and CEO effective Sept. 12. Williams will replace Nicholas P. Guarriello, who previously announced his plans to retire.

“After a thorough search, we are excited to add Jacob’s leadership and talents to the Agency,” said Bill Conrad, FMPA’s Chairman of the Board of Directors. “Jacob demonstrated a keen insight into the business of FMPA, and the Board is confident he will keep FMPA focused on its mission to provide competitively priced, reliable power.”

Williams has 30 years of experience in the utility industry. He currently serves as Vice President, Generation and Emissions Technologies at Peabody Energy in St. Louis, Mo. From 2007 to 2015, Williams was Vice President, Global Energy Analytics, leading the global analysis of energy and coal markets for Peabody. From 2001 to 2007, Williams was Peabody’s Vice President, Generation Development and played a key role in developing the largest new coal generation plant in more than 30 years in the United States. For the Prairie State Energy Campus, he was instrumental in bringing to fruition the 1,600 MW clean-coal power plant that was co-owned by Peabody with six municipal joint action agencies and two generation and transmission rural electric cooperatives.

Williams has experience providing services to public power utilities. He has served as Peabody’s representative on the Prairie State Board of Directors with the public power and cooperative partners since 2009. Prior to joining Peabody, Williams held various positions at Alliant Energy (formerly Wisconsin Power & Light) in energy marketing, trading, integrated resource planning, and generation planning, which included working with municipal and joint action agencies.

“I am honored to be selected as FMPA’s next General Manager and CEO,” said Williams. “The Agency is in a good competitive position and has a bright future. I am eager to work with FMPA’s members and staff to make FMPA the preferred power and service provider for municipal electric utilities.”

Williams holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

FMPA’s members performed a thorough, nationwide search. Following a request for proposal process, the Agency retained an executive search firm that is a nationally known specialist in recruiting for the utilities industry. FMPA’s Chairman appointed eight FMPA members to serve on an Executive Search Committee that would recommend a candidate to the Board of Directors. The committee met eight times between January and June before recommending Williams as the top-ranked candidate.

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Florida Municipal Power Agency (FMPA) is a wholesale power company owned by 31 municipal electric utilities. FMPA provides economies of scale in power generation and related services to support community-owned electric utilities. The members of FMPA serve approximately two million Floridians.