Gulf Coast Power Association Honors Trudy Harper With The 2010 Pat Wood Power Star Award

Trudy Harper
2010 GCPA Power Star Award Recipient

Trudy Harper, President of Tenaska Power Services Co. (TPS), was the recipient of the 2010 annual Pat Wood Power Star Award. The award recognized Ms. Harper’s significant contributions towards the advancement of competitive energy markets in Texas. After the Texas legislature deregulated the wholesale power market in 1995, Ms. Harper was asked to chair a group of market participants assigned to develop the first rules for operating the ERCOT wholesale market and establish ERCOT as the first Independent System Operator in the U.S. She went on to chair the first Transmission Market Operations Subcommittee and became the first non-utility chair of the Technical Advisory Committee as ERCOT worked through retail deregulation in 1999. She represented the independent power producer segment on the ERCOT Board of Directors through 2003.

“Trudy Harper’s leadership was instrumental to ERCOT’s successful transition from a fully regulated interconnected transmission system to today’s market-based wholesale and retail electricity market in Texas,” said John Stauffacher, GCPA Executive Director. “Trudy was able to shepherd the varied interests of utilities, independent power producers, consumers, regulators and even elected officials to shape the consensus rules governing the nation’s first, largest and most effective competitive power market. To say this was no small accomplishment is to greatly understate the value of her contribution to the evolution of the ERCOT system.”

Ms. Harper is president of Tenaska Power Services Co., the electric power marketing affiliate of Omaha-based Tenaska, Inc., one of the nation’s largest independent energy development and marketing companies. TPS, based in Dallas, Texas, specializes in physical power marketing and electric asset management for utilities and non-utility generators, and is one of the largest marketers of physical power in the United States. Ms. Harper is the former chairman of the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) Member Representatives Committee. She is a member of the Midwest Reliability Organization (MRO) Board and the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) Members Committee.

1