From staff and wire reports
Alabama Power President and CEO Mark Crosswhite is retiring Dec. 31, the company announced Monday.
A new president has not been named publicly. Crosswhite has been head of the company that supplies power to about 1.5 million customers in Alabama for more than eight years and his work with it and related companies goes back about 35 years.
In a written statement, Crosswhite, a Decatur native, said leading Alabama Power has been a high point of his career.
“It has been an honor working for a company that for more than a century has been dedicated to serving communities across Alabama,” he said. “As I approach my 60th birthday, though, I have come to realize it is time for me to spend more time with my family.”
Alabama Power is a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Company.
“Mark has spent a lifetime in service to his home state of Alabama through his work dedicated to the numerous charitable, civic and nonprofit causes he champions,” Tom Fanning, president and CEO of Southern Company, said in the statement. “As the leader of Alabama Power Company, one of Alabama’s great corporate institutions, he carried with him each and every day that sense of service as he worked to improve the lives of customers, communities and colleagues.”
In the statement, Crosswhite was credited with working with employees in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and in the building trades on continuing Alabama Power’s labor-management partnership and overseeing the company’s Council on Culture, which focused on “inclusion and fairness for all employees.”
He also led Prosper, an initiative in Birmingham to invest in economic opportunities.
Gov. Kay Ivey praised Crosswhite’s tenure in a Twitter post.
“Mark has been a lion in Alabama’s business community.,” Ivey said. “He has transformed our electrical grid with fiber deployments, has provided critical leadership in preparing Alabama for the innovation economy of tomorrow, and I am proud to call him my friend.”
In a statement, Alabama House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, praised Crosswhite.
“Mr. Crosswhite has fostered strong labor-management partnerships, promoted racial equity, supported innovation, and provided a vision for the implementation of future energy solutions,” Daniels said. “Because of Mr. Crosswhite’s efforts, Alabama Power will remain a collaborative partner in creating sound and responsible energy policy that will continue to benefit everyone in our state.”
Crosswhite was previously chief operating officer for Southern Company and president and CEO of Gulf Power in Florida. His career with Southern Company started in 2004 and prior to that he represented it for 17 years as a private practice attorney.