Paul Jones will retire from the board of WEC Energy Group at the end of the year and William Farrow III will replace him, the company announced.
Jones, retired executive chairman and chief executive officer of Milwaukee-based A.O. Smith Corp., has served on the WEC board since the company’s acquisition of Chicago-based Integrys Energy Group 2015. Jones, 67, had served on Integrys’ board and was one of three Integrys directors elected to the WEC Energy board. He also currently serves as non-executive chairman of Rexnord Corp. and director at Federal Signal Corp. and A.O. Smith. Jones has more than 25 years of experience managing business operations for large retail and industrial industries, and is very familiar with the Milwaukee market. He has previously served on the board of Bucyrus International Inc., before it was acquired by Caterpillar Inc.
“Paul’s insight and experience were invaluable in helping us to meet and exceed our goals for cost savings and integration post the acquisition,” said Gale Klappa, chairman and CEO of WEC Energy Group. “I’d like to thank Paul for his service, and we wish him and his family good health and happiness in the years ahead.”
Farrow, 62, is organizer, CEO, president and director of Urban Partnership Bank in Chicago. He will begin his role Jan. 1. Farrow holds a bachelor’s from Augustana College and a master’s in management from Northwestern University. Before organizing Urban Partnership Bank with four others in 2010, he served as a contract CEO and an advisor to information technology and finance companies. Farrow also previously was chief information officer at the Chicago Board of Trade and senior vice president at Bank One Corp. He also is a director at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Cboe Global Markets Inc., Echo Global Logistics, CoBank ACB and NorthShore University Health Systems.
“Bill joins a strong board – a board with a diversity of experience and background,” Klappa said. “He brings a unique blend of information technology and financial expertise along with the critical thinking skills that will help our company achieve its long-term objectives.”
With six utilities, including WE Energies, serving 4.4 million electric and natural gas customers in four states, WEC Energy Group is one of the largest utilities – and one of the largest corporations – in the country. It has about $30 billion in assets, 8,500 employees and 55,000 stockholders of record.
