ROANOKE, Virginia, June 30, 2014 – Appalachian Power will consolidate area hydro operations employees into one Roanoke office location later this year. The move includes the Smith Mountain Project Shoreline Management staff currently housed in the company’s distribution service center at Rocky Mount which will remain open.
The combined hydro office will be located in Appalachian’s downtown Roanoke office building at Franklin Rd. and 1st Street. A timetable for the move has not been established, but the six hydro employees housed at Rocky Mount will not relocate until after the busy summer season.
Shoreline Management staff will continue to provide all essential lake services for residents and commercial businesses and contractors within the Smith Mountain Project area. Employees will process applications, set up appointments, and conduct inspections at sites on the lakes and adjacent properties.
The company will maintain its office hours every Wednesday from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the Smith Mountain Regional Chamber of Commerce. The company is also seeking final approval to add another day each week to this schedule. A drop box for applications will remain available at the Rocky Mount office location.
This move will help eliminate overcrowding at the Rocky Mount building that was intended primarily as an operations service center for Appalachian. The location was built in the mid-1980s and originally housed a customer service center, line crews, maintenance shops, and supplies storage.
Hydro employees working on activities at the Smith Mountain Project began sharing a small section of the building in the late 1990s. As responsibilities and number of employees grew, the space became too small for the group and its growing number of files. The employees also handle responsibilities for the company’s other hydro operations in Virginia including the Claytor Lake Project on New River.
Additional information regarding the move will be distributed when it is available.
Appalachian Power has 1 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee (as AEP Appalachian Power). It is a unit of American Electric Power, one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, which delivers electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765 kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined.
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John Shepelwich
Corporate Communications
jeshepelwich@AEP.com