AEP’s Nourse brings decades of regulatory, development experience to Voinovich School Advisory Board

Steven Nourse, vice president-legal for AEP Ohio, shares a key interest with the George V. Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service at Ohio University.

Echoing the school’s late namesake public servant, Nourse explained that he appreciates the many public-private partnerships fostered by the school. Promoting that facet is a key focus of his membership on the Voinovich School’s advisory board, he said.

“I jumped at the chance to be on it because I really support the philosophy and the mission of public-private partnerships in the tradition of George Voinovich,” he said. “He was my favorite governor and was really one of a kind.”

“He really brought to the forefront at the time having government work together with businesses – not only startups but in other areas,” Nourse said, noting that approach has since grown at the state and federal levels. “It’s pretty commonplace now. It’s a great model and a successful role for government.”

OHIO is in the service area of AEP, which recently has taken over more of the transmission and distribution work involving the PORTSfuture project in Pike County, a major redevelopment effort involving the Voinovich School that’s held out as a prime example of a successful public-private collaboration.

Nourse has been an advisor to the school for about five years, but his company’s philanthropic involvements stretch back decades. Last fall, for example, AEP and the Voinovich School celebrated 20 years of collaboration that has included support for water quality testing, collegiate level research and STEM education efforts for students, among other initiatives. The latter focus continued more recently with a $50,000 donation from the utility.

“I’m proud of the support AEP has given consistently over time,” he said, especially those efforts on the STEM front that “help keep young people interested in careers” that could lead them to the power business.

Nourse said he hopes to continue nurturing the Voinovich School’s initiatives through his service to the board, which he said was already in a good place in terms of leadership and expertise before he joined.

“What I bring is my experience with government and regulation and economic development,” he said. He sees his role as “just helping to kind of steer things in the right direction relative to the focus on certain projects and the school’s philosophy.”

“It’s really incredible if you look at the projects the Voinovich School is involved in – not only the number, which is overwhelming, but also the array. The common thread is the connection to southeast Ohio and securing both state and federal government grants to improve the region,” he said. “They do a lot of great things for the economy and the people of southeast Ohio.”

For the last two decades, Nourse has been in the thick of intense policy debates over electric utility restructuring and deregulation as a top official at AEP. That work has included representing the company in proceedings before the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, the Ohio Supreme Court and the Ohio General Assembly.

A graduate of the Capital University School of Law and Bowling Green State University, he previously served under several administrations in the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.

In his spare time, Nourse said his interests include skiing, cycling and golfing.