Venita McCellon-Allen
Venita McCellon-Allen, a pioneering woman in utility boardrooms and a player in Arkansas’ energy sector since taking over the Texarkana division of Central & South West Corp. in 1994, has retired as president and chief operating officer of Southwestern Electric Power Co.
The retirement was announced Thursday by Nicholas K. Akins, chairman and CEO of Swepco’s parent company, American Electric Power of Columbus, Ohio.
McCellon-Allen, who was based at Swepco’s headquarters in Shreveport, Louisiana, spent 30 years with AEP and its affiliates, including 17 at CSW, where she became manager of the Central Division (now known as the Texarkana District) at age 34. A year later, she was promoted to CSW vice president and led the company’s preparation for its merger with AEP in the late 1990s.
After spending four years as senior vice president of human resources at Baylor Health Care System, a 15,000-employee nonprofit based in Dallas, she returned to AEP as an SVP of shared services in 2004. Two years later, she became president and COO for the first time, but McCellon-Allen interrupted that role by becoming a senior vice president for APE corporate in 2008, overseeing all of AEP’s seven operating companies, including Swepco, which she rejoined as president and COO in 2010.
McCellon-Allen, who is still in her 50s, was “an early representative of women on utility executive teams,” Swepco said in a news release, and she “served as both a formal and informal mentor for women” in the industry.
Under her leadership, Swepco more than doubled its invested capital and launched successful generation projects, including the John W. Turk Jr. power plant in Fulton (Hempstead County). The coal-fired 600-megawatt Turk plant, which began producing power commercially in 2012, was the state’s most expensive economic development project ever at the time of its construction at $1.8 billion.
“We are extremely appreciative of Venita’s hard work, dedicated service and significant accomplishments on behalf of Swepco, AEP and Central & South West over the last three decades,” Akins said in a statement, wishing McCellon-Allen well in retirement.
Swepco serves 532,000 customers in three states, including 117,000 in western Arkansas. It also provides wholesale power to the cities of Bentonville, Hope and Prescott.
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