PG&E Appoints Industrial Safety Expert Francisco Benavides as Chief Safety Officer

Will Be Key Leader in Company’s Ongoing Work to Improve Operational Safety Performance for its Customers and Communities

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As part of their commitment to strengthening public and workforce safety, PG&E Corporation and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (together, “PG&E” or “the company”) today announced the appointment of Francisco Benavides to the position of Vice President and Chief Safety Officer.

With his election by the Boards of Directors, Benavides joins PG&E from Alcoa Corporation, where he most recently served as Vice President of Environmental, Health and Safety. He brings 30 years of industrial safety, health and environmental experience to his new role.

Consistent with PG&E’s amended Plan of Reorganization, Benavides will report directly to Bill Johnson, Chief Executive Officer and President of PG&E Corporation. His role is effective March 9, 2020.

Benavides’ appointment is the result of a national search to fill this vitally important position, which is key to PG&E’s efforts to renew its focus on operational safety as the company continues to make progress toward exiting Chapter 11.

“We welcome Francisco’s extensive knowledge and global experience—across many industry sectors—that he brings to PG&E at this critical time for California. I know that he is committed to upholding our most important responsibility, which is keeping our customers, communities and workforce safe every single day. We look forward to Francisco applying his global and multi-dimensional safety experience to all parts of PG&E as we work to improve and sustain our operational performance, even in the face of climate-driven risks for our state and our energy infrastructure,” said Johnson.

In his new position, Benavides will be responsible and held accountable for:

• Protecting the safety of PG&E’s customers, communities and workforce;
• Setting the company’s workforce (including employee and contractor) and public safety strategy;
• Establishing governing standards and expectations for safety implementation across the company;
• Ensuring adherence to those standards;
• Supporting the company’s operational safety execution;
• Working to hone and mature PG&E’s safety culture; and
• Identifying areas of safety risk and developing preventive and corrective action plans.

Before Alcoa, Benavides held increasingly more senior leadership positions over safety, health and environmental functions with other global companies including Hexcel Corporation, Rio Tinto and Intel Corporation.

He holds a Doctorate in Environmental Science from Oklahoma State University, a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from West Virginia University, and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the Universidad de Costa Rica. Benavides is fluent in Spanish and French.

About PG&E

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas and electric energy companies in the United States. Based in San Francisco, with more than 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the nation’s cleanest energy to nearly 16 million people in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit pge.com and pge.com/news.