Theodore Welp

Welp became a senior vice president of Tucson Electric in 1974 when it was facing financial jeopardy. Welp, a graduate of Santa Clara University, had worked for General Electric, then moved to Pacific Gas & Electric where he was treasurer before arriving in Tucson. A history of Tucson Electric calls Welp a major player “in both TGE's remarkable successes in the 1980s and its subsequent failures into the 1990s He helped Tucson Electric to grow, bringing in great returns for shareholders and some of the lowest rates in the West with a series of shrewd financial deals, shedding its nuclear power and natural gas generation for coal. But his most important move was to pioneer wholesale power transactions, which kept rates low and made up a third of the utility’s total sales in 1982. The next year Tucson Electric told state regulators it would increase rates until 1987 and got permission to spin off its assets to a subsidiary called Alamito. Welp ended of his tenure as TEP president in 1984 and took over as CEO of Alamito, which continued to sell wholesale power. He tried to take Alamito private but it was sold in 1986 to a New York energy company. Welp made a reported $30 million on the deal for the company. TEP shareholders fared well in the short run. Later, TEP shareholders suffered when the utility's financial foundation crumbled. The move was later linked by many to TEP's near bankruptcy. The Welps headed a foundation that donated money to Christian organizations and centers for the deaf and blind - The Dove Foundation, based in Tucson, Ariz.