Pablo A. Vegas is vice president and chief information officer for American Electric Power. From 2008 to 2010, he was president and chief operating officer for AEP Texas, overseeing distribution operations serving more than 900,000 AEP customers in central and north Texas as well as the operating unit’s safety, customer services, marketing, communications, community affairs, governmental affairs, and regulatory functions.

Prior to this, Vegas served as director of strategic planning, working cross functionally to formulate AEP’s short and long term strategic plans. Since joining AEP in 2005, Vegas has held leadership positions in Information Technology and Finance, leading both the Corporate IT Planning and Commercial Operations IT Planning organizations. In these roles, he focused on continual process improvements and driving increased value through AEP’s technology investments.

Before joining AEP, Vegas held senior leadership positions with IBM, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Andersen Consulting. In his last position with IBM, as associate partner - communications sector, Vegas had responsibility for delivering process and technology solutions within the energy sector.

Vegas has served on the Board of Directors of the United Way of the Coastal Bend, the Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corporation, the U.S.S. Lexington, the Association of Electric Companies in Texas, the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association and St. James Episcopal School. He has also served as Vice President of the Board of Trustees of the Del Mar College Foundation.

Art Lofton is sector vice president, Information Technology Solutions, and chief information officer for Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems.

Lofton is responsible for establishing the strategic direction and leadership of all information system and information technology activities for the Aerospace Systems sector. Previously, he had the role of sector vice president, Information Technology, and chief information officer for the former Integrated Systems sector.

Prior to assuming the assignment of chief information officer, Lofton served as deputy program manager for the Long Range Strike program at Integrated Systems. He was responsible for the successful integration of projects, programs, integrated product teams (IPT), and infrastructure responsibilities across the IPT in support of the customer for execution of LRS upgrades, support and depot activities.
H
e also served as director of Operations Rapid Development and Production Processes. His areas of responsibility included the rapid development elements of Quality, Manufacturing, Materiel, Lean and Six Sigma, Facilities, Planning and Control, and Information Technology in addition to production processes.

Lofton’s other assignments have included director, Operations Strategic Planning and Integration, responsible for long-range and annual operating strategic planning, advanced manufacturing technology development, and process integration across Operations; and manager of Strategic Planning and Integration for Advanced Systems Development.

He joined Northrop Grumman as a flight test engineer on the B-2 program in 1990, and has held management positions of increasing responsibility. This includes his role as the site manager for Integrated Systems at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, in a partnering venture with the Air Force while executing the B-2 composites statement of work. In addition, he served in several positions on the B-2 program, including manager of Production Support; B-2 Block 30 IPT leader; manager of the air vehicle managers, foreign object elimination, and IMPCA; and manager of Production Flight Operations.

Lofton has a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. He has completed several advanced management programs, including the Program Management Seminar and Advanced Program Management Course.

Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide. Please visit www.northropgrumman.com for more information.