NorthWestern Corp. said Wednesday that its board has decided to stick with interim CEO Gary G. Drook as its permanent president and chief executive. Drook has been interim CEO since Jan. 3, around the time the company announced a corporate restructuring program, cut its dividend and took large write downs for several unregulated businesses (see Daily GPI, Feb. 20). On Wednesday, the board also elected Michael J. Hanson COO. Drook said that Hanson will continue to lead the operations of NorthWestern’s core electric and natural gas utility operations and will have responsibility for the strategic direction of the utility business along with taking on the additional responsibility for human resources management. Drook previously was president and chief executive officer of AFFINA Inc. a Peoria, IL, provider of customer relationship management programs.

Marathon Oil appointed Thomas K. Sneed as chief information officer effective Sept. 1. Sneed will be responsible for managing all aspects of Marathon’s information technology systems to ensure the company is able to fully leverage available technologies in support of the company’s business strategies and objectives. He will report to Jerry Howard, Marathon senior vice president of corporate affairs.

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