Release Date: Tuesday, October 19, 2004

OLIVERA AND WISE HONORED BY UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA'S BONBRIGHT UTILITIES CENTER DURING ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN ATLANTA

ATHENS, Ga. — A Florida power company executive and a Georgia Public Service Commissioner were each honored recently during the 2004 Bonbright Center Electric and Natural Gas Conference, with awards given by the James C. Bonbright Utilities Center at the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business.

Armando J. Olivera and Stan Wise were both recognized for their active involvement over the years in shaping regulatory policy toward the electric and natural gas industries as part of the Bonbright Center's 24th annual conference, held October 7-8 at the Crowne Plaza Ravinia in Atlanta.

Olivera was honored as the 2004 Bonbright Distinguished Service Award recipient. Olivera was named in June 2003 as president of Florida Power and Light, the principal subsidiary of FPL Group Inc. and one of the largest investor-owned electric utilities in the nation, with more than four million customer accounts.

"Armando is a classic success story of a Cuban immigrant who started his career at an entry level and, through intelligence and hard work, rose to head one of the largest and most successful electric utility companies in the United States," said Albert Danielsen, director of the Bonbright Center.

Olivera joined FPL in 1972 and has served in a variety of management positions in the areas of transmission and distribution operations, fuels management, and strategic planning and resource allocation. Most recently, he served as vice president of power systems.

During Olivera's leadership of power systems, FPL significantly increased service reliability, placing its performance in the top 20 percent of the industry. At the same time, the company's operations and maintenance costs per kilowatt-hour were well below the industry average. Over that five-year period, FPL added 350,000 new customers, while Olivera oversaw a multibillion dollar capital expansion program to keep pace with that growth and enhance overall system reliability.

Olivera holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Cornell University and a master of business administration degree from the University of Miami. He is also a graduate of the professional management program of the Harvard Business School.

Olivera is vice chairman of the Florida Reliability Coordinating Council (FRCC) Executive Board, a member of the Southeastern Electric Exchange and a member of the Cornell University Engineering Council.

Wise was recognized as the 2003 Bonbright Honoree. Wise won re-election to his second six-year term on the Georgia Public Service Commission in November 2000. He served as PSC chairman in 1997 and 1999. He was first elected to public office as a Cobb County commissioner in 1990 after previously serving on that county's planning commission and its zoning board of appeals. He also served as a board member of the 10-county Atlanta Regional Commission from 1992 to 1994.

"Stan Wise has been a strong leader in the private sector and, since 1990, has become a leading public servant. He is also a leader among utility regulators, rising to the top of their national organizations," said Danielsen.

Wise is currently president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and serves on NARUC's International Relations Committee and Gas Committee. He is also a past president of the Southeastern Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (SEARUC) and is a member of the U.S. Department of Energy State Energy Advisory Board.

He currently serves on the Cobb County Public Schools Educational Foundation, Inc. He has also served on the board of directors of the Cobb YMCA, the Boys Club of Cobb County and the advisory board of the North Georgia Law Enforcement Academy. He owned and operated an insurance business in Cobb County for 20 years. Wise earned a bachelor's degree in management from Charleston Southern University in 1974. He and his wife, Denise, have two grown children.

Established in 1992, the mission of the James C. Bonbright Utilities Center is to further understanding of the principles of regulatory management, economics and finance. The Bonbright Center develops conferences related to these topics for professionals in the electric and natural gas industries, each designed to encourage an open but non-adversarial exchange of viewpoints and perspectives. The center's purpose is to serve the training and educational needs of professionals in both the private and public sectors of these industries.

The center is named in honor of James C. Bonbright (1891-1985), distinguished professor of economics and political science at Columbia University. A pioneer in the field of public utility economics, Bonbright's work influenced virtually every state and federal regulatory commission. Among his many books and articles was the classic treatise on regulation, Principles of Public Utility Rates.

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