Tracey LeBeau Named Administrator And CEO Of Western Area Power Administration

U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm on Aug. 26 announced Tracey LeBeau as Administrator and CEO of Western Area Power Administration (WAPA).

LeBeau has served as Acting Administrator since March and has been a member of the WAPA senior executive team for more than seven years, leading operational and administrative enterprise and regional functions. LeBeau’s appointment is effective August 29, 2021. 

LeBeau has more than 20 years of executive experience in management, clean energy and infrastructure development, public-private partnerships, utility business operations, and federal program leadership and policy.

LeBeau joined WAPA in 2014 as the organization’s Transmission Infrastructure Program manager where she oversaw the operations and management of WAPA’s $3.25 billion borrowing authority to support and finance critical infrastructure in WAPA’s territory. 

LeBeau will be the first woman and, as a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, the first Native American to lead the organization. 

In this role, LeBeau is responsible for managing DOE’s largest power marketing administration, which markets an average of 25,000 gigawatt-hours of carbon-free hydropower from 57 hydroelectric dams across a 15-state footprint.

WAPA also owns, operates, and maintains a more than 17,000 circuit-mile, high-voltage transmission system that delivers hydropower and other sources of energy to cities and towns, rural electric cooperatives, irrigation districts, Native American tribes, and federal and state agencies, among others.