Published Saturday, July 31, 2010

Newnan native Connally is named Ga. Power senior production officer

The Newnan Times-Herald

Newnan native Stanley W. Connally Jr. was named Friday as Georgia Power's senior production officer, overseeing all the company's electric plants.

As senior vice president and chief production officer he will have overall responsibility for Georgia Power's more than 14,000 megawatts of fossil and hydro generation and will report to Paul Bowers, the company's newly named chief operating officer.

Connally has most recently served as plant manager at Alabama Power's Plant Barry.

Connally, 40, assumes the position immediately, replacing Doug Jones, who recently was named senior production officer of the parent Southern Company.

Connally has worked with Southern Company for 21 years in several functional areas, including customer operations, sales and marketing and power generation.

He began his career as a co-op student at Georgia Power's Plant Yates, in western Coweta County, in 1989 and held sales engineer positions before becoming an account executive in the Central Region in 1995. Three years later, he was named Central Region sales manager.

He returned to Georgia Power's corporate office in 1999 as assistant to the vice president of retail sales and service. He then served as group leader of engineering at Plant Wansley before being named plant manager of Mississippi Power's Plant Watson in 2003 and Plant Daniel in 2004. He assumed his current position at Alabama Power in 2007, where he had responsibility for all electric generating units at Plant Barry, Theodore Co-Generation Plant and Washington County Co-Generation Plant.

"It's great to welcome Stan back to the Georgia Power family," said President and CEO Mike Garrett. "His broad experience in different functions and companies gives him an important strategic view of our business and the way our power plants must evolve to meet the needs of our customers. His leadership style and knowledge will make a significant contribution to the power generation organization and our entire company."

Among other things at Plant Barry, Connally laid the groundwork for a Southern Company carbon capture and sequestration project that will capture between 100,000 and 150,000 metric tons a year of carbon dioxide for permanent storage at a site about 10 miles from the plant. That project is scheduled to begin operation in 2011.

A native of Newnan, Connally graduated in 1993 with a degree in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech. He completed the Goizueta Executive Education Program at Emory University in 2004 and the Southern Company Senior Leadership Development Program in 2009.

Connally and his wife, Amy, have two sons, and he enjoys coaching baseball, hunting and traveling with his family.

Georgia Power is the largest subsidiary of Southern Company, one of the nation's largest generators of electricity. Georgia Power serves 2.3 million customers in all but four of Georgia's 159 counties.