Chugach Electric Withdraws Job Offer to New CEO
By Brian Kassof
On Friday April 1 the Board of Directors of Chugach Electric Association (CEA) voted to withdraw its job offer to Hal Halpern, who it had recently selected as the cooperative’s new Chief Executive Officer. The decision, which was announced on Monday April 4, comes just three weeks after Halpern accepted an offer to become CEO and ten days before he was to begin in the post. On Tuesday April 5 CEA announced that the Board had appointed Arthur Miller, CEA’s current Executive Vice President of Regulatory and External Affairs, as Acting CEO. The Board will resume its search for a permanent replacement for current CEO, Lee Thibert, who is retiring at the end of April.
No reason was given for the CEA Board’s decision. A CEA spokesperson said the Board does not comment on personnel decisions. In a brief statement posted on April 4 to the website of his current employer, Cooperative Light & Power, Halpern stated that he is not taking the CEA position for personal reasons. According to the statement, Halpern still plans to leave his current position, as Cooperative Light & Power’s CEO, at the end of this week. Halpern was to have started at CEA on April 11.
CEA began its search for a new CEO in November 2021, after Thibert, who has served in that post since 2016, announced his plan to retire. The CEA Board employed the services of JK Executive, an executive recruiting firm, to assist in its search. After interviewing multiple candidates in February 2022, the Board offered the position to Halpern on March 8, and his appointment to the post was announced the next day. Halpern has been the CEO of Cooperative Light & Power, an electric cooperative located in Two Harbors, Minnesota, since 2019, and had also worked in the fiber optics industry.
The Board’s decision came after a special meeting that stretched across three days. The first part of the meeting, on the evening of Wednesday March 30, was dedicated solely to a discussion of “CEO Evaluation” in executive session. This discussion was resumed on Friday April 1. The motion, not to proceed with the hiring, was passed immediately after the Board left executive session.
The new Acting CEO, Arthur Miller, is a 32 year employee of CEA, where he has held multiple positions. Miller will work together with outgoing CEO Thibert until the end of April, and is expected to remain in the position until the transition to a new permanent CEO is complete. At the time of publication, we were unable to confirm whether or not the CEA Board plans to continue to employ JK Executive as the search goes forward.
