Mr. Dutton outlined the new customer service program at the Company's annual meeting of shareholders held today at the Sheraton Inn in South Burlington. About 200 shareholders and guests attended the meeting. Green Mountain Power's president offered shareholders an upbeat assessment of the Company's current financial performance and future prospects.

In introducing Mr. Dutton today, Green Mountain Power Board Chairman Thomas P. Salmon credited him and the management team he assembled for the Company's recovery from financial problems that threatened bankruptcy in the late 1990s. Mr. Salmon, former Vermont governor and president of the University of Vermont, said Mr. Dutton's steady leadership had guided Green Mountain Power through the darkest period of its 108-year history. He said companies are " ... in search of leaders who provide three basic qualities ... and they are direction, trust and hope. I cannot think of a better description of our CEO, Chris Dutton."

The evidence of the Company's recovery, Mr. Dutton said, has come from many sources, including improved credit ratings, more favorable banking arrangements, and higher stock prices. And, he said, the financial results for the first quarter of 2001 and projections for the full year are "right on target."

The utility chief focused most of his talk on the future, and on Green Mountain Power's rapid development of technology that will assure unexcelled customer service. Based on the ratio of employees to customers, he said, the Company already has achieved an efficiency unsurpassed by any major electric utility in the nation.

Furthermore, future performance standards have been negotiated with state regulators that cover virtually all aspects of service to customers. To back up the promise of customer satisfaction, Green Mountain Power will make an automatic credit to a customer's bill if it misses a promised deadline for installing new or temporary service, for disconnect-reconnect service, or for move-in, move-out service that is not completed within four business days of the date promised. The performance-penalty credits, he said, will range from $10 to $18.75.

Mr. Dutton said the Company has deployed new technology to achieve the improved efficiency and performance standards, but said dedicated employees "deserve great credit" for their hard work. He called on two employees, Steve Towne, a lineman, and Brian Dooley, engineering technical assistant, to explain to shareholders how the new technology is used to improve customer service.

The new technology, he said, has revolutionized the way Green Mountain Power does its business, but he also said the Company remains in fundamental ways what it always has been: a vertically integrated electric utility responsible for all functions necessary to deliver safe, reliable power to customers. Moreover, he said, the power crisis in California and elsewhere has set back the electric industry's deregulation movement so that, consequently, "Green Mountain Power will be in the energy supply business for a long time to come."

Competition has taken over the wholesale electricity markets, though, and Mr. Dutton said that New England is bringing adequate new generation on line.

"At Green Mountain Power," he told shareholders, "we have recognized that a small company like ours has insufficient financial capital and human and physical resources to compete successfully in this new wholesale market." The Company, therefore, will rely on partnerships such as the existing one with Morgan Stanley to ensure adequate power supplies and to mitigate market pricing volatility.

On the other hand, he said, Green Mountain Power plans to invest in improvements to some of its own small-scale generation sources to make them more efficient and to strengthen our power supply. "With relatively small investments, these wholly owned generators' value will grow in years to come," he said.

Closing his remarks, Mr. Dutton called shareholders' attention to Green Mountain Power's new logo, a symbol, he said that "dramatically tells everyone that this is a new and different Company."

At the business meeting, shareholders re-elected the following members to their Board of Directors: Nordahl L. Brue, who has served since 1992; Lorraine E. Chickering, who has served since 1994; John V. Cleary, who has served since 1980; and Euclid A. Irving, who has served since 1993.

Green Mountain Power Corporation is an investor-owned electric utility serving 86,000 customers in Vermont.