Bios of Speakers Katie Davis Vice President of External Affairs and Customer Experience Michigan Power

Katie Davis is an accomplished executive with deep experience developing multifaceted strategies that incorporate numerous disciplines and perspectives to deliver business objectives. Most recently, Katie served as the Vice-President of External Affairs at Duquesne Light Company (DLC) where she led the Communications, Legislative, Regulatory, Community Relations, and Sustainability teams creating an integrated external affairs strategy designed to increase DLC’s influence with key decision-makers and thought-leaders to achieve positive business outcomes. Prior to DLC, Katie worked for over a decade at Pacific Gas and Electric Company where she served in multiple roles including as Director and Chief of Staff to the CEO and President of PG&E Corporation. She played a key role in providing counsel to the CEO and senior leaders including during major company events such as the most catastrophic wildfires in California’s history, the largest proactive power shutoff in the energy industry, and one of the most complex bankruptcies in the country. She has also served as point person on developing regulatory, legislative and communications strategies to address critical business needs. Earlier in her career, Katie also managed a team of Local Public Affairs Representatives serving as PG&E’s liaisons to local government staff, elected officials and community stakeholders, managed energy efficiency contracts, and worked on several company-wide initiatives including corporate strategy, enterprise risk management, and emergency response. Externally, Katie has served on a number of boards including workforce investment boards, energy trade associations, Chambers of Commerce and other business organizations, and non-profits. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family and staying active.

Andrew T. Kostielney President, Board of Commissioners St. Joseph County Andy has served as the County Commissioner, District 1 since 2009, with the last eight years spent as President.

He serves on the Board of Trustees of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, is a member of the South Bend-Elkhart Regional Partnership Board, and the Chamber of Commerce Grow SJC Board.

Andy is also the Assistant Manager of Robinson Community Learning Center.

He is a graduate of the , and he and his wife Joy are blessed with three children and five grandchildren.

The Honorable James Mueller Mayor of the City of South Bend

Mayor Mueller is the chief executive of the City of South Bend. The city’s thirty-third mayor, he was sworn into office on January 1, 2020. As mayor, Mueller is responsible for the city workforce of over 1,000 employees and an annual budget over $380 million.

After attending St. Joseph’s High School, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Delaware for his PhD, Mueller worked in public policy before returning home in 2015 to join the Buttigieg administration as Mayor Pete’s Chief of Staff, Mueller promoted pragmatic public policies and affordable energy solutions at the George Washington University’s Solar Institute in Washington, DC. He also served in the office of US Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), for nearly four years, first as a John A. Knauss Legislative Fellow and then as a policy adviser on energy and natural resources.

Mueller’s tenure as Chief of Staff included the establishment of the first Diversity and Inclusion Office in Indiana, as well as the creation of the Departments of Innovation & Technology and the Venues Parks and Arts Department. Mueller went on to become the Executive Director of Community Investment where he was responsible for attracting businesses to South Bend and investing in the neighborhoods. Early in his tenure as Executive Director of Community Investment, Mueller established the Engagement & Economic Empowerment Division to empower residents with access to economic opportunities and meaningful civic participation

The Reverend Father John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. President, University of Notre Dame

Elected in 2005 as the University of Notre Dame’s 17th president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., was re-elected by the Board of Trustees to a fourth five-year term, effective July 1, 2020.

As president, he has devoted himself to fostering the University’s unique place in academia, the Church, our nation, and the world.

Father Jenkins has been committed to combining teaching and research excellence with a cultivation of the deeper purposes of Catholic higher education. While pursuing academic distinction, he has brought renewed emphasis to Notre Dame’s distinctive mission, rooted in the tradition of the Congregation of Holy Cross, the University’s founding community, to educate the whole person—mind, body, and spirit—to do good in the world.

These commitments have been made manifest in the University’s dedication to excellence in undergraduate education in the classroom and beyond, while simultaneously building a reputation as a preeminent research institution—all in the context of Notre Dame’s Catholic identity.

In June 2019, the University and the Vatican co-sponsored a conference in Rome titled “The Energy Transition and Care for Our Common Home.” Pope Francis and Cardinal Peter Turkson, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, addressed conference attendees, as did Father Jenkins. At the conclusion of the conference, most of the executives from among the world’s leading energy producers and investors signed statements in support of carbon pricing and disclosures on climate change risk. Most recently, Fr. Jenkins has directed the University’s ongoing efforts to protect the health and safety of the University community amid the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic while carrying forward the University’s mission of scholarship and discovery. Among many decisions, he suspended in-person classes in March 2020, then announced the resumption of primarily in-person instruction on campus for the 2020–21 academic year.

Construction of new academic buildings and residence halls as well as other investments in the University’s infrastructure, scholarly programs, and international reach during Father Jenkins’s tenure have helped Notre Dame to solidify its stature as one of the nation’s leading universities, and to advance his vision of making it “one of the preeminent research institutions in the world, a center for learning whose intellectual and religious traditions converge to make it a healing, unifying, enlightening force for a world deeply in need.”

As a result of these efforts, Notre Dame has been highly competitive in recruiting the best students, faculty, and staff and in attracting more than $180 million in fiscal year 2019 in outside research funding. Recent research initiatives include the completion of the country’s largest quiet Mach 6 hypersonic wind tunnel; the development of the Notre Dame Turbomachinery Laboratory, a public-private partnership that studies and tests new gas turbine engine technologies; the use of nanotechnology to address climate change and post-silicon computer technology; and nuclear physics research on the evolution of our cosmos. On a global scale, two Notre Dame biologists are leaders of a $23 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the fight against malaria and dengue fever.

In the 2017–18 academic year, Notre Dame completed the largest construction project in its history with the opening of the 770,000-square-foot Campus Crossroads Project, in which leading-edge teaching, research, student life, hospitality, performance, and digital technology buildings were built around the exterior of Notre Dame’s iconic football stadium. The additions have brought students, faculty, and others engaged in scholarly, artistic, and athletic pursuits in close proximity while optimizing underused space to preserve the pedestrian character of the Notre Dame campus. Among many other campus construction projects, Notre Dame in the winter of 2019 opened the Walsh Family Hall of Architecture and in the fall of 2017 opened Jenkins and Nanovic Halls, the new home to the Keough School of Global Affairs and the Departments of Sociology, Political Science, and Economics.

Father Jenkins has also strengthened Notre Dame’s relationship with the South Bend community in tangible ways, including leadership in the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative, which brought $42 million to the three-county region for economic development projects; formation of the Labs for Industry Futures and Transformation, which will enhance and link cutting- edge expertise, technologies, workforce development programs, and innovation-based facilities through the surrounding communities with a $42.4 million award from Lilly Endowment Inc.; support and staffing of the Robinson Community Learning Center, a learning center and gathering space for the community now in new quarters just south of the campus; construction of the mixed-use commercial and residential Eddy Street Commons project; and the expansion of the IDEA Center at Innovation Park where technology-driven research helps to create jobs locally. Notre Dame’s local economic impact amounts to approximately $2.5 billion annually and the direct and indirect employment of some 16,700 people.

All of these advances, Father Jenkins said, “would not be possible without outstanding students and faculty, the skill and dedication of our executive team, the guidance of our Trustees along with their generosity and that of alumni and other friends, as well as the careful stewardship of our resources.”

Recognizing the high cost of education, the University under Father Jenkins’s leadership has continued to increase financial aid, providing assistance to students with demonstrated need. The University provides more than $150 million in aid for undergraduates, a total that has more than doubled in the past decade and will increase dramatically in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly half of all students receive such aid, which does not require repayment, and the median grant for first-year students is more than $42,000.

Under Father Jenkins’s leadership, Notre Dame has increased the diversity of its student population, achieving the highest percentage of students from underrepresented groups in the University’s history. He leads the President’s Oversight Committee on Diversity and Inclusion to sustain focus on this important issue across the University. Within the University and beyond, Father Jenkins has called for civil discourse—grounded in the Christian view of others as equally made in the image of God—as a way to find common ground rather than demonize those with different opinions. In a speech at Emory University in 2011, he said, “If we choose to attack our opponents before we have taken the time to understand them, if we prefer denunciations to genuine dialogue, if we seek political victory rather than constructive compromise … we will not be able to find solutions to the problems before us.”

The Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that sponsors and produces all U.S. presidential and vice presidential debates, cited his leadership on this issue in electing Father Jenkins to its board of directors in 2011.

A philosopher trained in theology and a member of Notre Dame’s Department of Philosophy since 1990, Father Jenkins earned undergraduate and advanced degrees from Notre Dame, a doctorate of philosophy from Oxford University, and a master of divinity and licentiate in sacred theology from the Jesuit School of Theology.

Prior to assuming the presidency, Father Jenkins was vice president and associate provost of Notre Dame. A recipient of a Lilly Teaching Fellowship in 1991–92, he is the author of the book Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas, and of numerous scholarly articles published in The Journal of Philosophy, Medieval Philosophy and Theology, and the Journal of Religious Ethics.

Father Jenkins was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010, and a year later appointed to the academy’s Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences, which is dedicated to the advancement of teaching and research in these disciplines. A popular teacher, he has taught courses on ancient and medieval philosophy, faith and reason, and Thomas Aquinas.

Father Jenkins was appointed to the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities board of directors in February 2006 and served through January 2012, when his term ended. He is a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, awarded to those demonstrating outstanding qualities in their personal and professional lives, while maintaining the richness of their ethnic heritage. He was also the 2009 recipient of the American Irish Historical Society’s Gold Medal, and in 2015 he received the Spirit of Francis National Award from Catholic Extension for supporting and encouraging future leaders of the Catholic Church throughout his career.

Father Jenkins holds honorary degrees from Benedictine College, the University of San Francisco, and Aquinas College.

Lisa Barton Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer American Electric Power (AEP) Lisa M. Barton is executive vice president and chief operating officer of American Electric Power. She leads the activities of all AEP utility operating companies, as well as the operations of the Generation and Transmission business units, and the Procurement, Supply Chain and Fleet Operations organization.

Previously she was executive vice president, Utilities overseeing the activities of all AEP utility operating companies. Before that, she served as executive vice president, AEP Transmission, from 2011 through 2018. During her tenure, she established AEP Transmission Holding Company and its affiliates, oversaw transmission operations, and grew and managed an $18 billion asset base for the largest owner, operator and developer of electric transmission in North America.

She also oversaw AEP’s system wide corporate safety and health efforts. Barton served as a board member of Electric Transmission Texas (ETT) and Transource Energy, a competitive transmission development joint venture with Great Plains Energy.

Barton is a member of the company’s senior executive team and is an active participant in national forums on the subject of energy policy. She testified before the U.S. Senate, state commissions and served as a contributing member of the MIT Energy Initiative "Future of the Electric Grid"; and the bipartisan committee initiative on "Delivering Electric System Reliability and Clean Technology."

She joined AEP in 2006 from Northeast Utilities. Before that, she worked with Strategic Energy LLC, in Pittsburgh, and Ransmeier & Spellman of Concord, N.H.

Barton earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from WPI in Worcester, Mass., and a juris doctorate degree from Suffolk University Law School in Boston. She completed the Harvard Mediation Program for the Instruction of Lawyers, the Executive Program-Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia and the Nuclear Reactor Technology Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

A former International Women’s Foundation Fellow and member of G100 Next Generation Leadership, Barton is a current member of C200. She serves on the boards of the Electric Power Research Institute, Commercial Metals Company and GridWise Alliance, and she is a former board member of ReliabilityFirst. Barton also chairs the board of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra and is a board member of the Wexner Center for the Arts.

The Honorable Lt. Governor State of Indiana

Proud to have been born and raised in Evansville, Indiana, Suzanne previously served as Indiana’s from January 2014 through December 2016.

Before becoming auditor, she served as the state representative for House District 78, which encompasses parts of Vanderburgh and Warrick Counties. She was elected to the seat in 2005, and served as the Vice Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and on the Public Health Committee. Throughout her years of public service, Suzanne has been focused and committed to programs and services for people with disabilities. She was honored to receive the 2012 Public Policy Award from the Arc of Indiana for her work with people with disabilities and was named Legislator of the Year in 2011 by the Indiana Association of Rehabilitation Facilities.

Prior to serving in the House of Representatives, Suzanne spent eight years as auditor of Vanderburgh County. During that time, her office received its first clean bill of health in decades from the State Board of Accounts. She then went on to serve as a Vanderburgh County Commissioner until joining the House. She presided as president of that body during her third year in office.

As Lt. Governor, Suzanne oversees a portfolio that includes the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, Office of Community and Rural Affairs and Indiana Destination Development Corporation. In addition, she also serves as President of the , chair of the Indiana Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission, chair of the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Task Force, chair of the Indiana 2020 Census Committee and oversees the Next Level Veterans initiative and the Next Level Connections initiative.

Suzanne graduated from Mater Dei High School in Evansville. She then went on to receive her Bachelor’s Degree from Purdue University, majoring in Political Science, and four years later met her husband Larry Downs. Together they have a grown daughter, Courtney.

Toby Thomas President and Chief Operating Officer Indiana Michigan Power (I&M) Toby Thomas is president and chief operating officer for Indiana Michigan Power Company (I&M), overseeing the company's distribution operations and a wide range of customer and regulatory relationships. I&M is an operating company of AEP headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that serves customers in Indiana and Michigan. At I&M, we're improving our customers' experience, strengthening communities and energizing our employees to create a brighter future together. Previously, Thomas was vice president - Competitive Generation, responsible for the management of AEP's competitive generation fleet, including Cardinal, Conesville, Gavin, Greenville, Muskingum River, Waterford and wind generation. He also served as vice president - AEP Ohio, Joint Venture, and Wind Generation, responsible for the management of the AEP Ohio generating fleet, joint venture, and wind generation. From 2008 through 2012, he was managing director - Kentucky Power, Gas Turbine and Wind Generation, responsible for the safe generation and maintenance of various coal, combined cycle, and simple cycle units in the Midwest and wind generation units in Texas. Before that, Thomas was manager - Asset Investment, involved in the acquisition and integration of gas-fired generating assets for AEP's generation portfolio as well as the asset management of AEP's competitive co-generation facilities. He joined AEP in 2001 as a project engineer involved in the development and optimization of competitive power generation and industrial steam generation projects across the United States. Prior to joining AEP, Thomas worked for Cummins Engine Company in Columbus, Ind., as a performance development engineer. He holds a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from the Rose Hulman Institute of Technology. Community service is a vital part of Thomas' career. Currently, he serves as a member of the board of directors of the Indiana Energy Association and the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, and as a member of United Way of Allen County's Resource Development Committee.