On the recordSeptember 29, 2022
I want to take a moment to remember a visionary business and civic leader who passed away on Saturday. John Rowe once said ``there are two ways to become a CEO: Succeed your boss--or find a company that's in a lot of trouble.'' John--never afraid of a challenge--took the harder of those two routes. He came to Chicago in 1998, arriving as CEO of Unicom Corporation, owner of Commonwealth Edison. Com Ed was in sorry shape back then. Things got so bad that the city was considering a move to buy its own electrical system. Over the next 14 years, John transformed Unicom into Exelon, the largest electric parent company America. He was a Republican who believed in the science behind climate change and staked his company's future on his belief that money could be made through ``clean, reliable and affordable energy.'' He was among the first CEOs in the industry to focus on climate change, first testifying before Congress on the potential effects of carbon emissions in 1992. Under his leadership, Exelon became the first utility to join the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a group of businesses advocating for Federal legislation that required significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. He believed that truly successful leaders should be active beyond their businesses. So he invested his time and personal wealth back into the community. Along with his wife Jeanne and their son Bill, he established the Rowe Family Charitable Trust.…
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