The Women in Power committee believed that it was important to give recognition to the pioneering women who have worked to advance the power industry. To do this, the committee aksed power industry stakeholders to nominate women they admired for a Woman of the Year Award, which would be given out at POWER-GEN International. To judge the nominees, the committee came up with three focus areas. 2014 is the second year for this award.

The first and most important accomplishment that the committee believed a potential Power-Gen Woman of the Year should have made is advancing the power industry. In addition, the committee judged nominees by their leadership abilities, as well as their ability to collaborate with, influence, and mentor others. Finally, the committee believed that a potential Power-Gen Woman of the Year should impact her community through industry associations and other organizations. After four months of collecting nominations, the 19-member committee voted on the nominees and came up with three finalists, who are described below.

One of these women will be named the Power-Gen 2014 Woman of the Year at the annual awards banquet on Monday, Dec. 8, which takes place at the Disney’s Odyssey Pavilion at Epcot in Orlando, Fla. The banquet is part of the POWER-GEN International Conference and Exhibition and the co-located NUCLEAR POWER International Conference and Exhibition, Renewable Energy World Conference Exhibition, North America and the Power-Gen Financial Forum.

The 2014 Power-Gen Woman of the Year will give a keynote speech during the Women in Power Luncheon on Tuesday, December 9 at the Orange County Convention Center also as part of the co-located conferences.

Here’s a look at the finalists:

Diane Drehoff – “I like to be a trailblazer…I like to be first.”

Throughout her 42-year history in the Power Supply industry, Diane Drehoff has been part of many “firsts.” She was the first woman in Westinghouse to call on an electric utility for Power Systems equipment. She was the first employee in Westinghouse to be nominated for and selected to be an IEEE Congressional Fellow. And she led the Westinghouse Power Generation business to become the first US Power Generation business unit certified to ISO 9001 Quality Standards.

Her interest in power plants started when she was 10 years old. “My dad was a generation account representative for Westinghouse in Oklahoma City. One Saturday, he got a call from the plant personnel over at the OGE Belle Isle power station, a small 15-MW turbine. I guess that my dad had child care duty that day, so he took me and my sister with him to go over and talk to the plant people about an issue they were experiencing. When you are 10 years old, a turbine generator, even one that is only 15 MW, is an impressive sight. I was fascinated by the size and complexity of all of the piping and  components that I saw and was quite interested in understanding just how all of that equipment could produce electricity.”

This initial spark of interest in power generation led to her Electrical Engineering degree from Stanford. She joined Westinghouse out of college where she worked in diverse areas such as sales representative, generation projects manager, and director of total quality for power generation. Says Drehoff of her early years in the industry, “I was very excited to be selected as a spokesperson in 1980 for a balanced energy equation in the U.S. I had the opportunity to talk to media across the country about the need to support all types of energy sources including solar, wind, gas, coal and nuclear. I felt this was an important message for Americans to understand and support.”

For many years there were very few women entering the power industry as a profession; Drehoff was always quite visible in terms of her performance and overcoming apprehensions about women in the business. She adopted a posture of being just one of the team and never felt that she was treated differently than male associates. She was a model for putting her customers’ needs as the highest priority and rallying the team she worked with to go the extra mile to provide the best service possible. During her career Drehoff has experienced at least a half a dozen major power plant failures that required extensive repairs and replacements. In each case, she was able to provide leadership and creative solutions that resulted in successful and timely restoration of those units to service.

Drehoff’s years of experience and success both at Westinghouse and at Siemens have made her one of only a few women in the company who have achieved a top leadership position. Her diverse background and industry experience have enabled her to have a clear understanding of today’s power industry needs and to steer the Siemens service products and offerings in a direction that enhances the performance of the power industry assets she serves. She was recently a featured speaker in the Women of Siemens series, where she spoke to a global audience of 300 women and men about her career and the lessons she has learned throughout her 42 years of work experience. She was able to reach employees in Europe and Asia and has been contacted by many of her listeners to give further perspectives on their career paths. Drehoff gives her time and effort to coaching and mentoring early career professionals to encourage rewarding careers in the power industry. She is currently a mentor for the Women Unlimited Lead program in the Orlando, Florida area, a program for women of diverse companies and locations which focuses on women identified to be candidates for executive roles.

Of her illustrious career, she says, “I have always taken pride in being very proactive in providing services to our power customers that maximize their ability to be online providing power to their customers. I am completely committed to being a 24 hours per day, 365 days per year support team for the power industry.”