Who’s leaving the TVA board?
* Joe Ritch, a Huntsville, Ala., attorney, was appointed to the TVA board in 2012 and has been chairman for the past three years. He was re-elected by the board as chair for a 2-year term in February, but his term will now end only half way through that term.* Mike McWherter, a Jackson, Tenn., lawyer and beer distributor, was appointed to the TVA board in 2013 after he ran unsuccessfully for governor of Tennessee in 2010.* Peter Mahurin, chairman of Hilliard Lyons Financial Services, was appointed to the TVA board in 2013 and served as chairman of the finance, rates and portfolio committee.
TVA president and CEO Bill Johnson speaks to reporters after a news conference at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015, near Spring City, Tenn., as Unit 2 begins producing electricity for the first time, 43 years after construction began at the site. 
Joe Ritch is photographed as the TVA board of directors hold a public meeting Thursday at TVA’s Chattanooga Office Complex. 
Mike McWherter is photographed as the TVA board of directors hold a public meeting Thursday at TVA’s Chattanooga Office Complex. 
Pete Mahurin is photographed as the TVA board of directors hold a public meeting Thursday at TVA’s Chattanooga Office Complex. TVA’s outgoing directors have boosted the pay and opened up a richer golden parachute for the head of America’s biggest government utility to lessen the chances he may be ousted or encouraged to leave by a new TVA board appointed by President Donald Trump.
In their final act on the TVA board last week, three TVA directors whose terms end next week voted along with other board members to add another $200,000 in potential compensation for TVA CEO Bill Johnson. The board also added possibly millions of dollars more in retirement benefits for Johnson, who is already the nation’s highest paid federal employee.
“It was just a clear statement that we want to keep our current management in place and the board wants to continue to keep going in the direction it has been going,” said TVA Chairman Joe Ritch, one of three TVA board members whose reappointment by President Obama was not confirmed by the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate. “The loss of three board members is not going to change that.”
With one third of the 9-member TVA board out of office at the end of 2016 – and the terms of two other TVA board members ending next May – President-elect Trump will be able to appoint a majority of the TVA board next year to replace most of the nine Democratic appointees made by President Obama over the past eight years.