Ground-breaking Public-Private Partnership Serving 2.5 Million

The ability to partner with amazing companies, organizations and teams over the years has been such a blessing in my life – especially my gig life. For this #ThrowbackThursday, I wanted to share a little about my work to create and launch a robust government affairs, public affairs / public relations and stakeholder / community engagement program – from the ground up!

I have launched programs like this several times as part of many senior management teams – for both non-profit and for-profit organizations. This one is special because not only was it a large project partnering with a team of experts in their field (environment, science, engineering, coal, power, electric, other lobbyists – and more!) on the local, state and national level…It also involved a public private partnership that covered 180 communities in eight states – making the difference daily for 2.5 million families and businesses that we served! Plus I had the privilege to partner with a brilliant cross-functional team every day.

This was for the $4+ billion Prairie State Generating Company / Prairie State Energy Campus (Prairie State) – literally from the “ground up” as it was being built. This included its state and federal legislative and regulatory efforts and its internal and external communications program with local, state and federal officials, the media, stakeholders and the community (and more!).

While at Prairie State, I had the honor to guide the massive public relations effort with senior management to support the high-intensity, all-hands-on-deck, delicate negotiation - and ultimately the successful launch - of a new contract with Prairie State’s EPC contractor – to accolades by ownership and the senior management team for my role in supporting the effort with our team.

To this day, Prairie State remains an example of the positive impact of public-private partnerships, and it was an incredible experience being a part of the team that helped launch it.

Learn more about my role there on my website sheribilderback.com/consulting (see my CV).

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About Prairie State…

Prairie State is a ground-breaking public-private partnership between municipal, rural electric cooperatives and corporate interests, which constructed a power plant with advanced environmental technology and a coal mine, serving more than 2.5 million families and businesses across 180 communities in eight states.