Conn. native to lead Avangrid’s Northeast utility operations
Months after winning praise from Connecticut legislators for straight answers on his utility’s response to Tropical Storm Isaias — but criticism from some quarters for the response itself — Tony Marone is retiring as the head of Avangrid’s utility businesses.
His replacement is Catherine Stempien, who most recently led the Florida territories of Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy. She brings experience in hurricane response and recovery, in addition to broader legal and regulatory background.
Based in Orange under new CEO Dennis Arriola, who came on the job last summer, Avangrid lumps United Illuminating, Southern Connecticut Gas, and Connecticut Natural Gas under its Avangrids Networks subsidiary that Stempien will lead as of March 15, along with utilities in New York, Massachusetts and Maine.
In October, Avangrid installed Berkshire Gas chief Frank Reynolds to lead its electric and natural gas operations in Connecticut and Massachusetts, reporting to Marone.
Avangrid has been expanding a separate renewable energy business, that includes the Vineyard Wind and Park City Wind turbine farms planned for off the southern New England Coast.
Active on Twitter — where she styles herself a “Yankee girl softened by the south” alongside the #womeninpower hashtag — Stempien grew up in Simsbury before attending Dartmouth College and then studying law at Boston University. Before joining Duke in 2003, she worked as an attorney for AT&T in Basking Ridge, N.J. Her spouse Jim Bolin is a Charlotte attorney.
No woman is among the 10 senior-most executives Avangrid lists online. Three of its 14 board seats are held by women — including Pattie Jacobs, AT&T’s top executive in New England based in Boston.
Marone has spent his career with Avangrid and its predecessor companies, dating back to 1987 when he joined United Illuminating as an assistant engineer. The past year was the most demanding, after Isaias brought down power lines throughout the state.
That prompted the Connecticut General Assembly and the state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to demand answers from Marone and his counterparts at Eversource Energy on why the electric utilities were not better prepared to handle a storm of that magnitude. The legislature subsequently crafted a “take back the grid” law that stiffens penalties on utilities if their storm response is deemed inadequate.
United Illuminating provides power for 17 communites in the New Haven and Bridgeport area.
Stempien had been on the Duke job for only a matter of months in 2018 when Hurricane Michael delivered a similar wallop in Florida, referencing the experience the following spring during a commencement ceremony at Lake Sumter State College.
“After the devastating impact of Hurricane Michael over the panhandle last fall, our team did what many thought was impossible — they rebuilt the entire electric system ... in three weeks,” she said. “You assess the situation, put a plan together, and you start.”