Lori Burrows
Lori L. Burrows, vice president and general counsel at Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. and a co-founder of the nonprofit group Arkansas Women in Power, died March 24 in Little Rock.
She was 47.
A former lawyer with the Arkansas Public Service Commission, Burrows joined AECC as a staff attorney in 2012, not long before founding AWIP, which brought together women from across the energy spectrum, encouraging networking and professional development.
Burrows, a 2015 Arkansas Business 40 Under 40 honoree, grew up in Saline County and lived her whole life in central Arkansas with the exception of more than two years in the Peace Corps.
In the Federated States of Micronesia, an island chain in the Pacific, she helped out-of-school youths and taught English as a second language.
A 1997 graduate of the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Burrows had an early job with Arkansans for Drug Free Youth. After her Peace Corps service, she graduated from the University of Arkansas Little Rock Bowen School of Law, worked in the state attorney general’s office and spent six years on the staff of the Arkansas Public Service Commission, the state’s utility regulator.
Promoted to general counsel and vice president at AECC in 2014, Burrows oversaw safety management, compliance and risk management, among other duties.
She told Arkansas Business in 2015 that creating a nonprofit dedicated to the promotion of women in the utility industry was one of her most significant professional achievements. “My volunteer and service philosophy is really just do what you can to help other people,” Burrows said.
In a 2021 interview, she said that in the energy industry, women make up only about a quarter of the overall workforce and fill only 15% of executive positions. “But I figured out early on that hard work, subject matter expertise and strategic thinking were going to propel me the farthest,” she told AY Magazine.
Her experience as a woman did keep her attuned to those affected by her every action and decision, she said. “I consider that a huge asset. To paraphrase Maya Angelou, people do not always remember what you say or do, but they will always remember how they felt about it. My goal is to ensure people feel heard, even if the decision is different than they might have wanted.”
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