Ms. Julie Pierce, Vice President of Strategy and Planning for Minnesota Power, is responsible for long-term strategy development for customer electric needs. This area includes fuel strategy and procurement, project development, consideration of new technology, customer power supply marketing and Regional Transmission Organization coordination, customer forecasting, and resource planning to meet Minnesota Power customer requirements. This includes a strong team of individuals that evaluates options on a daily basis and forecasts customer electricity usage and trends for long-term strategy development. Julie has worked in the Strategy and Planning area for Minnesota Power for 11 years.

Before moving to Duluth with her husband in 2007, Ms. Pierce worked 8 years with the Midwest ISO in the reliability and market operations areas, responsible departments that conducted real-time coordination of transmission outage requests and engineering support for the Reliability Coordination center in St. Paul, MN, and assisted with the implementation of the Day Ahead and Real Time energy markets. While with the Midwest ISO, Julie served on several North American Electric Reliability Council committees that focused on setting standards and developing tools to support electric reliability and manage transmission congestion on the bulk transmission grid.

Ms. Pierce earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from North Dakota State University. Among her many outside activities, Ms. Pierce serves as a Chair for the Generations Health Care Initiatives, which promotes access to healthcare in Northeastern Minnesota. She also serves as a Director on the Duluth 1200 Fund board and a committee member for the Arrowhead Regional Development Council Regional Loan Fund—two regionally focused financial funds that help advance regional projects. She enjoys promoting diverse education for youth in the community and serves on the Marshal School Board of Directors.

She and her husband Peter, have two small children, Abby (10) and Emma (6). She enjoys cross country skiing, hiking, and all things outdoors in Northeast Minnesota.

Minnesota Power provides electric service within a 26,000-square-mile area in Northeastern Minnesota, supporting comfort, security and quality of life for 145,000 customers, 16 municipalities and some of the largest industrial customers in the United States. More information is available at www.mnpower.com. ALE-CORP