June 30, 2005
News Release 05-15
Dolly Richendrfer, Communications Specialist
(509) 377-4728
RICHLAND, Wash. – The Energy Northwest Executive Board elected new officers at its June 16 meeting here. Effective tomorrow, Executive Board officers for the Joint Operating Agency are: Edward E. (Ted) Coates, chairman; Dan Gunkel, vice chairman; Roger Sparks, secretary; and Wash. State Senator Tim Sheldon, assistant secretary. All were elected to serve one year terms.
Coates has been on the Executive Board since 1995, serving as chairman since July 2003. He also served on Energy Northwest's Board of Directors from 1986 to 1991, and is the former director of Tacoma Public Utilities. “The chairmanship of the Energy Northwest Executive Board is both a privilege and a challenge, and I am honored to have been re-elected,” he said.
Gunkel has served on the Executive Board since 1994 and has been a member of the Board of Directors since 1991. He is a Klickitat County Public Utility District commissioner and coowner of a family business, Gunkel Orchards, Inc., in Goldendale, Washington.
Sparks, a Kittitas County Public Utility District (PUD) commissioner, was elected to the Executive Board in January 1994. A resident of Ellensburg, Washington, he has been a member of Energy Northwest's Board of Directors since 1981, serving as Board of Directors president from 1987 to 1994.
State Senator Tim Sheldon has served on the Executive Board since 2003 when he was appointed to fill the remaining term of outgoing board member, John Cockburn. He was reappointed to serve a full, four-year term in 2004. Senator Sheldon was a Mason County Public Utility District No. 1 commissioner from 1999 to 2002. As senator for the 35th District, he represents all of Mason, and portions of Grays Harbor, Kitsap, and Thurston counties. He is also the general partner in Sheldon Properties, a family owned, 1,100-acre tree farm on the Olympic Peninsula.
The Executive Board is Energy Northwest’s policy making body. It meets monthly and is composed of 11 members; five elected from the Energy Northwest Board of Directors and six outside members. Outside members have no other formal association with Energy Northwest; three are appointed by the Board of Directors and three are appointed by the governor.