PECO II INC history

He chartered the Pennsylvania Heat, Light and Power Company in 1895 with a massive capitalization of $10 million and immediately began to acquire competitors, taking over Columbia Electric Light Company and courting the Philadelphia Edison Company.

In 1898, Maloney absorbed five of Philadelphia's eight remaining independent arc lighting companies.

PE retained the suburban gas and electric utilities that had been merged into it in 1929.

The company was surviving well enough, in fact, that during the depth of the Depression in 1932, it ordered one of the era's largest generating units.

The postwar era brought a new focus on PE's gas operations, especially after 1948, when the "Big Inch" and "Little Big Inch" interstate pipelines were converted from oil to natural gas transmission.

Then, in 1958, the company joined over fifty other utilities to build a prototypical reactor dubbed Peach Bottom No.

A joint minemouth generation project among members of the PJM to create the Keystone plant in Indiana, Pennsylvania, was undertaken in 1962.

He assumed the company's chair and newly created chief executive office ten years later, holding those positions until his retirement in 1971.

Gilkeson launched a Corporate Communications Department in 1975 to act as a liaison between the utility and the media, government agencies, and the general public.

A centennial history published by PE in 1981 quoted an employee of the era who affirmed "the sigh of relief" felt at Schuylkill Station on Armistice Day.

Joseph F. Paquette, Jr. was called back to PE after a brief hiatus to accept the chair and chief executive office of the troubled company in 1988.

The importance of nuclear generation to Philadelphia Electric's operations was reflected in the fact that the nuclear segment of the company's total electric power output was 60 percent in 1993.