Howard takes reins of EPRI

Howard, a University of Tennessee graduate and EPRI's current senior vice president of research and development, will take the position in September, following the retirement of president and CEO Steve Specker, EPRI announced.

EPRI, a nonprofit research organization for the electric power industry, has principal research labs in Knoxville, Palo Alto, Calif., and Charlotte, N.C., and serves 90 percent of the power generation industry in the U.S. along with power providers in 40 foreign countries. EPRI employs about 125 people in Knoxville and 775 companywide.

"In the role that I'm in at EPRI... I've had to have the perspective of the entire industry," said Howard in a telephone interview Monday. "What are the issues that we need to be working on, whether it's nuclear, electric power vehicles, renewables.... It's a perfect transition. It's really to just keep doing what I've been doing."

Howard came to Knoxville in 1992 as head of the Tennessee Center for Research and Development, which, under Howard's leadership, morphed into EPRI PEAC - Power Electronics Applications Center was reorganized with three other research firms to become EPRI Solutions and, finally, became a formal research center within EPRI itself.

Howard, who said he would work from home bases in Charlotte and Knoxville in his new position, said EPRI's local office will continue to play an important role in the organization's R&D activities. EPRI's presence, together with TVA and ORNL, makes the region an important research hub for a variety of power-related projects, said Tom Key, director of ORNL's energy efficiency and electricity technologies program, and he said those partnerships should continue and grow under Howard's leadership.

"We have very, very strong capabilities, and in my mind it's important for us to be collaborators and working together," Key said. "With Mike's background in working with the laboratory, we're really excited about that and looking forward to a long collaboration and partnership with EPRI."

Tom Kilgore, president and CEO of TVA, serves on the EPRI board and has followed Howard's career for the past several years.

"I... have found Mike to be a very knowledgable and very good executive," Kilgore said in a statement sent via e-mail. "He always knows his subject matter and communicates his thoughts effectively to a wide range of audiences. He is very much up-to-date on the world energy picture due to his development of partnerships with EPRI's international counterparts."

Today, Howard said, the organization's role is growing in importance as power companies turn to EPRI to find solutions for issues that promise to transform power generation and delivery.

"I think number one is, you have to speak truth to technology," he said. "What I mean by that is you have to understand what the various technologies will do and what they will not. Do the science, do the technology to really understand what is the truth about technology. That's what we've been doing, and we'll continue to do."