Northern States Power, the venerable name that generations of Minnesotans called “the power company,” disappeared from public view when the company merged with New Century Energies in Denver in 2000 to create Xcel Energy. But the NSP name lives on as NSP Minnesota, a subsidiary that oversees Xcel’s operations in Minnesota and the Dakotas. And Cyndi Lesher, the new president and CEO of NSP Minnesota, has one foot planted in the old NSP and one in the new.
Lesher was hired by NSP 25 years ago after a career as a social worker. She’s risen through the ranks, and as chief executive for NSP Minnesota, heads one of four operating companies in Xcel Energy’s new Utilities Group.
NSP Minnesota has about 1.3 million electricity and 480,000 natural-gas customers in Minnesota and parts of the Dakotas. Lesher calls herself the “local face” of Xcel Energy, which is returning to its traditional utility-company roots as the likelihood of deregulation in energy production—which looked like a promising growth engine for the industry before the Enron debacle—continues to fade.
“Many [power] companies are going back to the basics, back to being integrated, vertical utilities,” Lesher explains. “That’s what we do and we do it well. We want to continue to do it well, which is why we’re investing significantly in our infrastructure.” Xcel Energy has sold businesses that “aren’t part of our core competencies,” she adds. The most notable example is NRG, the power-generation firm that Xcel Energy unloaded in 2003. Another is Seren Innovations, a broadband communications company that the utility recently sold.
Lesher was most recently an Xcel Energy vice president and chief administrative officer. She says she was aided in her career by an NSP mentor who had faith in a non-engineer, giving her a chance to work on NSP’s energy distribution and overseeing line construction crews. Lesher says she’ll be satisfied if, when she turns out her office lights for the very last time, “people look at Xcel Energy as a premier utility that provides great service and is a great community citizen and environmental steward.” Xcel Energy’s $1 billion effort to reduce emissions at its metro-area power plants and its ranking as the nation’s number-two provider of wind energy may help make that happen.
