ENERGY STAR.

AuthorMartin, Edward
PositionSTATEWIDE: Charlotte

Charlotte leaders long boasted their city was America's second-largest financial center. But in 2008, Queen City banking was in disarray. Wachovia, teetering on insolvency, was scooped up by San Francisco-based Wells Fargo. Bank of America was rumored to be moving to New York. It wasn't true, but BofA and other financial institutions were shedding thousands of jobs.

Jim Rogers, then CEO of Duke Energy, had only been in Charlotte for two years, but he saw an opportunity for a fresh approach. "He said, 'Let's pitch ourselves more strongly than ever to financial markets in New York and Chicago,'" former Charlotte Chamber President Bob Morgan says. "More importantly, he said the Charlotte energy sector was poised to grow across the globe, and we [had] an opportunity to become the nation's emerging energy center." Within weeks, Rogers assembled a summit that attracted local executives; Gov. Beverly Perdue; future Gov. Pat McCrory, a Duke Energy executive; and national energy experts. "It was his concept, and he put the muscle behind it."

By the time Rogers retired in 2013, Charlotte's energy sector had grown markedly, while Duke had consolidated much of North Carolina's electric-utility industry through the acquisition of Raleigh-based Progress Energy. He also shepherded his company's move into a new, 54-story headquarters which the former Wachovia had planned, and he had emerged as one of the energy industry's first leaders to press for federal action to address climate change.

While only a CEO in North Carolina for seven years, he ranks among the state's most impactful business leaders over the last few decades, Morgan and others say. In Rogers' obituary, Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria said, "I am hard-pressed to think of anyone in any industry, not just energy, with a similar record."

Rogers, who died of sepsis at age 71 in Louisville, Ky., in December, had a diverse career. After graduating from the University of Kentucky College of Law, he worked as a state consumer advocate tasked with scrutinizing utility rate hikes. He later moved to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, then a large Washington, D.C., law firm before entering the energy industry with an Enron subsidiary. In 1988, Indiana-based PSI Resources hired him as CEO, giving him a platform to display some extraordinary boardroom skills. At the time, the utility was more than 90% reliant on coal for its power source and struggling to pay for environmental upgrades...

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