William Dean "Bill" Johnson (born January 9, 1954) is an American attorney and businessman. He is a retired president and CEO of the

Pacific Gas and Electric Company The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is an American investor-owned utility (IOU). The company is headquartered in the Pacific Gas & Electric Building, in San Francisco, California. PG&E provides natural gas and electricity to 5.2 milli ...

, as of June 2020.

Early life

Bill Johnson was born on January 9, 1954. He attended

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

, where he played football as an offensive lineman, but did not earn a degree. He later graduated from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

with a bachelor's degree in history. He also obtained a J.D. degree from the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

in 1982.

Career

After graduating, he served as a law clerk on the

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (in case citations, 4th Cir.) is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maryland ...

. He later worked as a partner in the

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the List of North Carolina county seats, seat of Wake County, North Carolina, Wake County in the United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most ...

office of

Hunton & Williams Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP is an American law firm created by the merger of Hunton & Williams LLP and Andrews Kurth Kenyon LLP on April 2, 2018. The firm has offices in 20 cities, primarily in the United States. History Hunton & Williams (formerl ...

. He joined Progress Energy forerunner

Carolina Power & Light Carolina Power & Light (CP&L), later doing business as Progress Energy Inc., was an electrical generation, transmission, and distribution utility based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The company was founded on July 13, 1908 as the result of the merge ...

in 1995. He became president of Progress Energy in 2005, and chairman and CEO in 2007. He remained the chairman, president, and CEO of Progress Energy until the company was bought by

Duke Energy Duke Energy Corporation is an American electric power and natural gas holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Overview Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Duke Energy owns 58,200 megawatts of base-load and peak generation in ...

, in 2012. Per the merger agreement between Progress and Duke, he was slated to become CEO of the new combined company. Within an hour after the merger closed, he was removed as CEO by the new board, the majority of whom were legacy Duke Energy board members. The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' estimated that Johnson received $44 million as severance pay. He next served the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for six years before announcing plans to retire, in November 2018, amid some controversy. At their February 2019 meeting, the TVA board of directors announced their selection of Jeffrey Lyash to replace Johnson, effective April 2019. Lyash came to TVA from

Ontario Power Generation Ontario Power Generation Inc. (OPG) is a Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation and "government business enterprise" that is responsible for approximately half of the electricity generation in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is w ...

Inc. (OPG). On April 3, 2019, Johnson was announced as the new president and CEO of PG&E Corporation, replacing interim CEO John Simon, and garnering "more than twice the base salary" of his predecessor,

Geisha Williams Geisha J. Williams (born Jimenez, c. 1961/1962) is a Cuban American businesswoman. She was the president and CEO of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) from March 2017 to January 13, 2019. Early life Williams was born Geisha J. Jimenez in ...

. On April 22, 2020, it was publicly announced that Johnson would be retiring from PG&E.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, William D. Duke University Trinity College of Arts and Sciences alumni Living people 1954 births American chief executives of energy companies 20th-century American businesspeople University of North Carolina School of Law alumni