Akron, Oh., USA - March 18, 2015, Akron, Oh., USA - FirstEnergy Corp., a diversified energy company, announced that Jerry Sue Thornton has been elected to the company's board of directors.
Article continues below
Dr. Thornton is the former president of Cuyahoga Community College (TRI-C) in Cleveland, Ohio, and currently serves as president emeritus of TRI-C as well as chief executive officer of Dream Catcher Educational Consulting, which provides coaching and professional development for newly selected college and university presidents.
Dr. Thornton currently serves on the boards of Applied Industrial Technologies, RPM International Inc. and University Hospitals Health System Inc.
Prior to her presidency at TRI-C, she served as the president of Lakewood Community College in White Bear Lake, Minn. and as dean of Arts and Sciences at Triton College in River Grove, Ill.
Her prior corporate directorships include American Family Mutual Insurance Co., Inc., American Greetings Corp., BridgeStreet Worldwide, Inc., National City Corporation and OfficeMax Inc.
She received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Murray State University in Murray, Ky. and earned her Ph.D. in Educational Administration from The University of Texas.
Additionally, Catherine A. Rein and Wes M. Taylor will retire from the FirstEnergy Board of Directors on May 19.
Ms. Rein has been a director of FirstEnergy Corp. since 2001 and served on the board of the former GPU, Inc., from 1989 to 2001, when GPU merged with FirstEnergy. She is a member of the Audit and Compensation committees.
Ms. Rein holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in labor management from The Pennsylvania State University, and earned a law degree from New York University School of Law.
She is the former president and CEO of Metropolitan Property and Casualty Insurance Company, and retired from MetLife, Inc., in 2008 as senior executive vice president and chief administrative officer. She continues to serve as a director of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation.
Mr. Taylor has been a director of FirstEnergy Corp. since 2004, serving on the Compensation and Nuclear committees. He earned Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M University, and completed the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Business as well as the Reactor Technology Course for Utility Executives at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He served as the president of Dallas Power & Light and then TXU Generation for more than 20 years before retiring in 2004. Mr. Taylor is past chairman of the National Coal Council; the National Nuclear Accrediting Board; and the Electric Power Research Institute's Nuclear Power Council.
He also was a member of the Edison Electric Institute's Policy Committee on the Environment, the National Mining Association Board of Directors and the Coal-Based Generation Stakeholders Group. He remains the chairman of the Board of Directors of Arch Coal, Inc. ■