Gerry Cauley

Gerry W. Cauley was named President and Chief Executive Officer of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) in November 2009 and assumed the role in January 2010.

Mr. Cauley is responsible for overseeing NERC’s mission to ensure the reliability of the North American bulk power system. As President and CEO, Mr. Cauley leads key programs affecting over 1900 bulk power system owners, operators, and users, including standards and training, critical infrastructure, risk analysis, compliance monitoring, enforcement, situation awareness, reliability assessment, and government relations. Mr. Cauley also oversees the operation of eight regional entities engaged in implementation of delegated responsibilities.

From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Cauley served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the SERC Reliability Corporation, a reliability region covering 16 states in the southeastern and central United States. During this time he established new programs for monitoring and enforcing compliance with mandatory standards, developed training and educational programs, and a program to track reliability recommendations.

Prior to his CEO career, Mr. Cauley served as Vice President and Director of Standards at NERC and was instrumental in preparing NERC’s application to become the ERO. He spearheaded the development of an initial set of standards to ensure the reliability of the bulk power system in North America. Mr. Cauley was also a lead investigator of the August 2003 Northeast blackout and coordinated the NERC Y2k program, supervising the reporting and readiness of 3,100 electric organizations in the United States and Canada.

Additionally, Mr. Cauley has served in various positions of leadership during his career, including program manager of grid operations and planning at the Electric Power Research Institute, training consultant for electric system operations, nuclear and fossil plant operations, substations, and distribution. He also served as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Mr. Cauley has a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a master’s degree from the University of Maryland in nuclear engineering, and a master’s degree in business administration from Loyola College - Baltimore. Mr. Cauley is a registered Professional Engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia.