KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee Valley Authority Chairman Joe Ritch of Huntsville has been removed from the utility’s board of directors.
“He has transitioned off the board,” TVA spokesperson Scott Brooks said. “The members of the TVA Board of Directors are nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.”
Ritch, who was just the second Huntsvillian to serve on the board, had no comment on the dismissal.
The office of U.S. Rep. Dale Strong, who represents Huntsville in Congress, did not respond to an email about Ritch’s firing.
A Huntsville native and community leader who had previously served as chair of the TVA board, Ritch was terminated Tuesday at the direction of the president via an email from the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, the utility confirmed to Knox News.
While Ritch’s dismissal leaves the board without a quorum to conduct business, Brooks said operations will continue unimpeded.
“TVA will continue to operate and deliver reliable, affordable energy to the 10 million people we serve across our seven-state region,” Brooks said.
Ritch was nominated to the board by President Joe Biden in July 2022 and confirmed by the Senate in December 2022. His term was set to expire next month.
Before that, he was on the federal utility’s board but left in 2017 after a Republican-controlled Senate failed the previous year to confirm his appointment and that of two others by then-President Barack Obama.
After Obama nominated Ritch to the board in 2012, he was confirmed by the Senate the following year.
The board voted to make him chairman in 2014.
Ritch is the second board member to be fired from the nation’s largest federal utilily in the last week.
Michelle Moore was dismissed at the direction of the president last Thursday. She was nominated to the board by former President Joe Biden in January 2022 and confirmed by Senate on Dec. 21, 2022. Her term was expected to expire May 18, 2026.
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