Alfred University alumna Patricia Nilsen ’88, CEO of Avangrid companies Rochester Gas & Electric (RG&E) and New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) and a member of the university’s Board of Trustees, will deliver the keynote address at the Opening Convocation on Thursday, Aug. 21.
Alfred University alumna Patricia Nilsen ’88, CEO of Avangrid companies Rochester Gas & Electric (RG&E) and New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) and a member of the university’s Board of Trustees, will deliver the keynote address at the Opening Convocation on Thursday, Aug. 21.
The ceremony, set for 2:30 p.m. in Galanis Family Arena, will mark the beginning of Alfred University’s 190th year. Classes for the 2025-26 year begin on Monday, Aug. 25.
Nilsen earned a bachelor's degree in English from Alfred University in 1988 and went on to earn a master’s degree in English from Syracuse University in 1990 and a master’s degree in adult education from Elmira College in 1996.
She was appointed president and CEO of Avangrid companies New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) and Rochester Gas and Electric (RG&E) in 2022 and is the first woman to lead the company in its 175-year history. Avangrid is a leading energy company working to meet the growing demand for energy for homes and businesses nationwide through service, innovation, and continued investments in expanding grid infrastructure and energy generation projects. Avangrid owns and operates eight electric and natural gas utilities, including NYSEG and RG&E, serving more than 3.3 million customers in New York and New England.
As CEO, Nilsen leads the NYSEG and RG&E teams which serve more than 1.2 million electric and 579,000 natural gas customers across more than 40 percent of Upstate New York. She has more than three decades of experience in the energy sector, beginning her career at NYSEG in 1992 in Human Resources.
In 1997, Nilsen was appointed manager of Customer Satisfaction and Outreach, a role she held for nine years before moving to Corporate Communications and Customer Service. She has served in a number of high-profile leadership roles throughout her tenure, including leading emergency preparedness response for all eight of Avangrid’s electric and natural gas companies. From 2013-16 she served as manager of Outreach and Municipal Relations and from 2016-21 she was director of Emergency Preparedness.
Nilsen served as Avangrid’s vice president for Reliability Assurance and Emergency Preparedness—responsible for compliance with North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) reliability standards, ensuring emergency readiness and response, and serving as the COVID business liaison officer for Avangrid Networks—before her appointment as president and CEO of RG&E and NYSEG.
Nilsen was elected to the Alfred University Board of Trustees in May, effective July 1.
