Who is up for reappointment
* Joe Ritch, a Huntsville, Ala., attorney, was elected in 2014 by his fellow TVA directors as board chairman. He has also served as chairman of the Tennessee Valley Base Realignment and Closures Committee since 1994 and as co-chairman of the Tennessee Valley Growth Coordination Group since 2008. From 2005 to 2011, he was a member of the University of Alabama board of trustees.* Peter Mahurin, a Bowling Green, Ky., businessman who is the chairman of the TVA finance, rates and portfolio committee from Kentucky, is chairman of Hilliard Lyons Financial Services. He is also a member of Houchens Industries, Albany Bancorp, First Cecilian Bancorp, Gray Construction and Jackson Financial. Prior to his time at Hilliard Lyons, Mahurin was a high school math and science teacher.* Mike McWherter, the chairman of TVA’s exernal relations committee from Jackson, Tenn., is an attorney and businessman and is the son of former Tennessee Gov. Ned McWherter. The younger McWherter ran unsuccessfully in 2009 for governor as a Democrat. He is owner and president of Central Distributors Inc., and Volunteer Distributing Co., Tennessee-based beverage distribution companies. He served as chairman of First State Bank of Union City, and on the board of directors of the Jackson Energy Authority.
TVA Chairman Joe Ritch
TVA Director Peter Mahurin
TVA Director Mike McWherterOne third of TVA’s board, including its chairman, will have to be reappointed by the lame duck session of Congress that begins this week in Washington, or the three directors will end their terms on the governing board for America’s biggest government power utility at the end of the year.
Tennessee’s senators, both Republicans, have previously voiced support for the three board members and said last week they know of no plans to try to block the reappointment of the three Democrats in the GOP-controlled Senate.
But the three Democrats Obama recommended for a second term on the TVA board acknowledged last week that their re-appointments by President Obama are more uncertain after last week’s electoral victory by Republican Donald Trump, who could appoint GOP members to the board after he becomes president in January.
TVA Chairman Joe Ritch, who chaired what could be his last meeting of the TVA board last week, quoted the late President John Kennedy who asserted in a 1963 speech at TVA’s facilities in Muscle Shoals, Ala., that “TVA’s work will never be done.