Top Edison executive to retire
Environmentalist-turned-utility executive John E. Bryson will retire in July from the helm of Edison International, the Rosemead company said Thursday.
Bryson, who will leave at age 65 in accordance with company tradition, will be succeeded by Theodore F. Craver Jr., 56, a long-time lieutenant who helped steer Edison International and its Southern California Edison subsidiary through the 2000-01 energy crisis. Craver will join Edison’s board immediately and become president of Edison in April, a few months before he takes the jobs of chairman and chief executive at Edison International.
“I think it’s time to make a change, and this is consistent with our planning for a long time,” said Bryson, who will have served as chief executive for 18 years, the longest tenure at Edison in at least half a century. “It’s exciting to have done it, and I intend to keep doing it for another nine months.”
Edison is best known as the parent company to Southern California Edison, which serves 4.8 million customers. Bryson and other executives often have come under fire from the Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco consumer group active at the state Public Utilities Commission.
“I doubt his customers are going to shed any tears. In TURN’s point of view, a great CEO of a utility would keep rates affordable and keep the utility reliable,” said Mindy Spatt, the group’s spokeswoman. Bryson, she said, “hasn’t kept rates affordable, and as for reliability -- there have been good times and bad times.”
Craver has been at Edison for 11 years, and spent the last few years as president and chief executive of Irvine-based Edison Mission Group, an unregulated Edison subsidiary that manages companies that run power plants and wind farms and invest in a variety of energy-related projects. Before that, he was executive vice president at the parent company and served as its chief financial officer and treasurer.
Bryson credited Craver with helping to dissuade skittish creditors from forcing Edison and its utility into bankruptcy in 2001 after wholesale electricity prices skyrocketed but customer rates didn’t keep pace, leaving the utility with huge debts. He added that Craver will be “an extremely effective and strong leader for the company.”
Edison board members selected Craver at a meeting late Thursday afternoon after an executive search that Bryson said included only internal candidates. The company said there were “several” candidates but did not identify them.
Michael Peevey, president of the PUC and a former Edison executive, said he and others believed that Southern California Edison’s chairman and chief executive, Alan Fohrer, was among the candidates for Bryson’s job.
Peevey was an executive vice president at Edison when he lost out to Bryson in the competition for the CEO post in 1990, becoming Edison president instead.
“It’s like deja vu all over again, except I’m just an interested bystander now,” Peevey said Thursday. “Some people may be surprised with the choice. My hat goes off to Mr. Craver.
“I hope Al stays with the company,” he added. “The consolation prize in this kind of situation is hardly being in the dumps. . . . These are challenging jobs and rewarding ones.”
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