GRU General Manager Selection
Robert Hunzinger has been selected as General Manager for GRU effective March 3, 2008. Hunzinger, who most recently served as a consultant with Prairie State Generating Company, LLC in St. Louis, was the General Manager at Owensboro Municipal Utilities in Owensboro, Kentucky until 2007. He replaces Karen Johnson who is retiring after nearly 20 years of service.
With more than 25 years experience, Hunzinger has worked in all three sectors of the utility industry, including investor-owned, cooperative and municipal. Recently, the American Public Power Association chose Hunzinger to participate in the Blue Ribbon CEO Climate Change Task Force, composed of a group of 30 CEOs nationwide, to help direct APPA policy with respect to climate change issues.
"Mr. Hunzinger certainly brings solid experience as a General Manager of a municipal utility, and the entire City Commission was pleased to hear him express a willingness to really get to know our GRU employees," said Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan.
GRU has a number of major projects underway including review of responses to an RFP for a proposed biomass plant to help meet future energy needs, completion of the South Energy Center, which is a highly efficient 4.2 megawatt facility powered by natural gas being constructed on the campus of the new Shands at UF Cancer Hospital, a $140 million emissions reduction system installation on GRU's coal burning unit Deerhaven 2, and a 250 kilowatt solar project that would provide energy to power 60 homes for one year.
