By Tom Kleckner
SPP continues to add fresh blood to its leadership ranks, announcing on Thursday that two new officers will join its senior leadership team from within the RTO’s ranks.
The grid operator said its Board of Directors had elected Sam Ellis as chief information security officer and vice president of information technology, and Antoine Lucas to serve as the organization’s vice president of engineering, effective Feb. 1. The two were recommended by CEO-elect Barbara Sugg and COO Lanny Nickell, SPP said, filling the positions left vacant by their earlier promotions. (See SPP Board Taps Barbara Sugg as New CEO and SPP Names Nickell COO, Adds Board Member.)
“Some of SPP’s greatest opportunities for advancement will depend on our ability to build and manage relationships with our stakeholders and to innovate,” Sugg said in a statement. “Both Sam and Antoine are exactly the kind of people we need leading us into the future.”
Ellis, the organization’s director of cybersecurity and controls, will assume oversight of the IT department from Sugg. He will be responsible for technology development and deployment, monitoring, support and cybersecurity for SPP and its members, and for establishing IT strategy and policies. Ellis joined the RTO in 2003 from Empire District Electric and has 26 years of industry experience in transmission and generation operations and electricity and natural gas trading.
Lucas, formerly director of transmission planning, replaces Nickell and will oversee the transmission expansion plan’s ongoing development, tracking expansion projects, administering generator interconnection processes, engineering studies and supporting SPP’s real-time operations functions. He joined the organization in 2007 after five years with Entergy Services as an engineer and system operator.
Both Ellis and Lucas have played prominent roles recently in front of stakeholders. Ellis was program director of the day-ahead market’s successful implementation in 2014, while Lucas has served as the point person for SPP’s Integrated Transmission Planning process.
