Six years after taking the helm of El Paso Electric, President and Chief Executive Officer Kelly Tomblin said Friday she’s retiring from the utility.
Replacing Tomblin as El Paso Electric’s top executive is Eliecer “Eli” Viamontes, a 42-year-old who’s worked in the utility industry for more than 20 years and recently left his role as CEO and chairman of Entergy Texas, an electric utility serving much of southeast Texas.
Viamontes will assume leadership of El Paso Electric Nov. 9. Tomblin’s retirement is effective that day.
“I’m honored to join EPE at this pivotal moment for the company and the broader energy sector,” Viamontes said in a news release. “As EPE’s next CEO, my focus will be on delivering safe and reliable power that customers can count on while making the right investments to empower our region.”
One of the major questions Viamontes will face as chief executive is how to balance systemwide investments with customer affordability as hotter average temperatures in El Paso and the utility’s spending program have both led to significant household electric bill increases in the Borderland.
Tomblin was appointed CEO of El Paso Electric in 2020 after the J.P. Morgan-owned Infrastructure Investments Fund acquired the utility in a $4.3 billion deal and took El Paso Electric private. The utility previously had been publicly traded on the stock market for decades.
Tomblin initially interviewed for a seat on El Paso Electric’s board before she was selected to lead the utility as CEO.
“It has been a privilege to lead EPE and work alongside our incredible team in service of our customers and communities,” Tomblin said. “I’m incredibly proud of what we have accomplished together, from modernizing our infrastructure to strengthening reliability across the grid to bolstering our regional footprint.
“I have strong conviction that Eli’s proven experience in our industry makes him uniquely qualified to serve as EPE’s next leader,” Tomblin said in a statement.
Who is Eliecer Viamontes?
Born in Miami and raised in Hialeah, Florida, Viamontes earned an electrical engineering degree and an MBA from Florida International University. He joined Entergy in 2020 before becoming CEO of its Texas subsidiary in late 2021.
In comments provided by El Paso Electric, Houston-area leaders who worked with Viamontes praised his leadership talent.
“Eli is a seasoned and talented executive, who knows and practices careful management, strong team building, and eloquent communication,” said Steve Kean, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership and former CEO of Kinder Morgan, a major energy infrastructure company. “He has also been a valuable member of our community, in particular in the areas of workforce development and critical system resilience.”
Viamontes departs a utility much more focused on supplying electricity to more massive industrial operations than El Paso Electric, such as refineries, chemical manufacturers and other industrial operations along the Gulf Coast. In 2024, industrial customers purchased about 45% of all the electricity sold by Entergy Texas, compared with 31% consumed by residential customers.
At El Paso Electric, industrial customers accounted for only about 13% of electricity sales that year.
Under Viamontes, Entergy Texas has been developing a 1,215-megawatt natural-gas plant in Orange County, and in 2025 secured state approval for two additional gas plants totaling more than 1.2 gigawatts.
Tomblin’s departure comes as El Paso Electric is in the midst of a transformational spending and construction boom, with billions of dollars in planned investments in new solar farms and major transmission projects in eastern El Paso County.
Since Tomblin became CEO, the utility started receiving power from the region’s first large-scale solar farm – the Buena Vista facility in Otero County, New Mexico – and also built the Newman 6 natural gas power station, the city’s largest power plant.
When El Paso Electric first applied for a rate increase last year, the utility said it had placed roughly $1.5 billion of new infrastructure into service between the beginning of 2021 and September 2024. That includes power plants but also substations, transmission and distribution wires.
Tomblin also set a long-term goal of obtaining 80% of its electricity from carbon-free resources by 2035 and achieving net-zero carbon emissions – which drive climate change – by 2045.
The utility currently maintains about 2,800 megawatts of total generation capacity across four local power plants and the Palo Verde Nuclear plant near Phoenix, Arizona. But El Paso Electric has multiple solar farms planned or under construction; over the next few years, El Paso Electric is pursuing another 400 megawatts of solar generation, 500 megawatts of battery-storage capacity and is also seeking approval from regulators to build the $500 million McCloud natural gas plant to supply electricity to Meta’s data center next door in Northeast El Paso.
El Paso Electric is also seeking to build several major high-voltage transmission lines across east and northeast El Paso County, where the utility says residential and industrial development is driving the need for more infrastructure to generate and deliver electricity as the city sprawls eastward.
“EPE has a strong foundation and given how exceptionally well-positioned the business is for the future, the Board believes now is the right time to implement this leadership transition,” said Ed Escudero, an El Paso businessman and chairman of the utility’s board.
“Eli brings extensive industry experience, a proven track record of operational excellence, and a deep understanding of the opportunities and challenges shaping our region,” Escudero said. “We are confident he has the skills and expertise necessary to drive EPE’s next phase of success, meet growing demand across our service region, and continue providing our communities with the reliability they expect.”
Originally from West Virginia, Tomblin led Jamaica’s largest electric company before departing to be CEO of a utility construction contractor, her previous role before joining El Paso Electric. She was formerly a practicing lawyer and utility executive in New Jersey.
“Over the past six years, Kelly has played an instrumental role in developing and executing the Company’s long-term strategic plan, expanding our renewable energy portfolio and strengthening relationships with a diverse set of customers and stakeholders across our service region,” Escudero said. “Kelly has transformed EPE into one of the premier electric utilities in the Southwest, and we are grateful that she will continue to support the Company through this leadership transition.”
For El Paso Electric, the next several years could test how quickly a regional utility can remake its system as it undertakes major projects building out transmission lines, new generating plants and substations. At the same time, the utility is looking to implement time-of-use rates more widely, which charge customers more for electricity in the afternoons and are designed to lower demand at the hottest times of day.
The post El Paso Electric CEO Kelly Tomblin retires; Eliecer Viamontes named new leader appeared first on El Paso Matters.
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