Alabama Power's board of directors today elected Charles D. McCrary Alabama Power chief executive officer. The CEO responsibilities are an addition to his role as president, to which he was named in April.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20011025/ATTH036 )

Elmer Harris will remain chairman of the board until his retirement from the company in January 2002.

"It has been a pleasure to work with Elmer Harris during this transition in leadership, and I look forward to leading this company and serving the employees, customers and communities of this state," McCrary said.

Prior to being elected president and CEO, McCrary, 49, served three years as president of Southern Company Generation and Energy Marketing and as chief production officer for Southern Co. , which serves more than four million customers in the Southeast.

In that role, he also served as president of Southern Power Co., which he established to expand generation both inside and outside the company's traditional service territory. McCrary has also been president of Southern Electric Railroad Co. Inc., the nation's largest privately owned railroad. Southern uses the railroad to deliver fuel to its generating plants.

From 1991 to 1998, McCrary headed external affairs at Alabama Power as senior vice president and later as executive vice president.

"Our industry, our state and our nation is facing a time of great challenge and uncertainty. It is a time that requires great leadership and strong leaders. Charles McCrary offers both," said Harris.

McCrary has worked in the Southern Co. system since 1973, handling assignments in engineering, fuels, system planning, and several departments in Alabama Power's Environmental Affairs organization. He also worked as assistant to former Alabama Power President Joseph Farley.

Later, he was vice president for administrative services-nuclear with responsibility to help plan and start Southern Nuclear Operating Co.

In Birmingham, McCrary is chairman-elect of the Birmingham Area Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the Metropolitan Arts Council, and serves on the boards of AmSouth Bancorporation, Children's Hospital, Boy Scouts of America, Birmingham Urban Revitalization Partnership, and Vestavia Hills City Schools Foundation.

Within the utility industry, he is on the national board of the Center for Energy and Economic Development, co-chairman of the Coal Utilization Research Council, and member of the Environmental Policy Committee of the Edison Electric Institute.

McCrary's father, Douglas McCrary, is also a former president of a Southern Co. subsidiary, Gulf Power. Douglas McCrary joined Alabama Power in 1953 and was vice president of construction during an era of major expansion. Later he was senior vice president for engineering of Southern Co. From 1983 to 1994, he was president and chief executive officer at Gulf Power, which serves the Florida panhandle.

The two McCrarys are the first father-and-son presidents in the history of Southern Co.

McCrary graduated from Birmingham's Shades Valley High School in 1969. He received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Auburn University in 1973 and a J.D. degree from the Birmingham School of Law in 1978. He is a member of the Alabama State Bar.

He is married to the former Phyllis Brantley of Birmingham. They have two sons, Doug, a junior at Vanderbilt University, and Alex, a freshman at Auburn University.

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SOURCE: Alabama Power Company