Kilbride to remain TVA chairman

Chattanoogan Bill Kilbride will remain as chairman of America’s biggest public utility until November unless his replacement is named and confirmed before then.

In the first meeting of a full nine-member TVA board since 2019, Kilbride was elected Thursday to remain as chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority for the next couple of board meetings, and former TVA Chairman Joe Ritch was elected as chairman-elect to succeed Kilbride at the board’s Nov. 10 meeting.

Before being named by former President Donald Trump to the TVA board in 2019, Kilbride served as the president of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce from 2014 to 2017 after working as president of the Home Division and chief sustainability officer for Mohawk Industries in Calhoun, Georgia, for more than 20 years.

Kilbride has been chairman of TVA since 2021, but his term on the TVA board ends in May, although he can continue to serve through the rest of 2023 unless his replacement is nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

“I think we all agree that Bill Kilbride has done a great job as chair,” TVA Director Beth Harwell, a former speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives, said during Thursday’s meeting.

Ritch, a Huntsville, Alabama, attorney, is one of six directors named by Biden who joined the TVA board Thursday for its quarterly meeting in Florence, Alabama. He previously served on the TVA board from 2012 to 2017 and was elected chair of the board of directors in 2014, becoming first Alabamian to chair the utility.

Ritch’s appointment by Biden helped ensure some continuity in the nine-member panel that oversees the federal utility since a majority of the board is new to the agency this year.