RICHMOND, Va., March 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Dominion (NYSE: D) Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Thomas F. Farrell II has been named Utility CEO of the Year by EnergyBiz magazine. In its fourth year, the EnergyBiz Knowledge, Innovation, Technology, Excellence (KITE) Awards program recognizes executives who have positioned their companies to succeed through business and technology innovation, insight, and achievement.

Winners in three categories — Energy Company of the Year, Utility CEO of the Year and Lifetime Achievement — were chosen by EnergyBiz magazine Editor-in-Chief Martin Rosenberg and his editorial staff.

Said Rosenberg:

"Dominion was the first of five utilities that launched a pilot program to attempt to recruit returning members of our military for utility jobs. The idea for the project came to Tom Farrell, whose family connections to the U.S. military go back three generations, as he pondered the high unemployment rate of men and women returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. The utility sector has been looking at a daunting problem — the loss of 200,000 employees over five years. The solution Farrell helped put in place is to try to recruit some of the 200,000 active-duty personnel leaving the military each year for meaningful work at utilities.

"One of the gratifying tasks associated with preparing for the EnergyBiz Leadership Forum each year is contacting industry leaders and trusted sources to gain their input as to who is worthy of being honored at our annual awards banquet. I call our past awards winners to get their guidance as well. I have to say when I asked for nominees who we should consider honoring as the Chief Executive Officer of the year, one name came up most often: Tom Farrell."

"I am very grateful for this award," Farrell said. "I accept it on behalf of Dominion's nearly 16,000 employees, who do a difficult job together — safely, responsibly and ethically, day in and day out. Without them, our successes would be far fewer. That is certainly true in our case."

The awards were presented at the EnergyBiz Leadership Forum in Arlington, Va., where top utility leaders offered insights into the disruptive forces affecting today's power industry. The event was presented by Energy Central.

Past Utility CEO of the Year award recipients include David Crane of NRG Energy, Lewis Hay of NextEra Energy, and Jim Rogers of Duke Energy.

About Dominion:
Dominion is one of the nation's largest producers and transporters of energy, with a portfolio of approximately 28,000 megawatts of generation, 11,000 miles of natural gas transmission, gathering and storage pipeline and approximately 6,300 miles of electric transmission lines.  Dominion operates the nation's largest natural gas storage system with 947 billion cubic feet of storage capacity and serves retail energy customers in 15 states. For more information about Dominion, visit the company's website at www.dom.com.

About Energy Central:
Energy Central was founded in 1996 to satisfy the global power industry's need for a reliable, trusted information hub where executives and field representatives alike could share ideas and discuss concepts that could alter the future of electric energy. Energy Central provides groundbreaking research, insightful reports and analytics, advisory services, and original, thought-provoking commentary — in print, online and through well-attended events — on energy-driven topics such as utility business, smart grid, renewable energy, energy storage, transmission and distribution, generation and customer analytics. For more about Energy Central, visit www.energycentral.com.

SOURCE Dominion