Biography – Lloyd Linke

Lloyd Linke

Senior Vice President and Regional Manager Upper Great Plains
Western Area Power Administration

Lloyd Linke was appointed senior vice president and Upper Great Plains regional manager for Western Area Power Administration in July 2021.

As the UGP regional manager located in Watertown, South Dakota, Linke leads more than 340 employees across Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota in serving customers with cost-based federal hydropower. UGP markets more than 2,600 megawatts of firm federal hydropower in a six-state area across almost 8,000 miles of WAPA-owned transmission line to 339 customers. This power is generated at Yellowtail Powerplant on the Bighorn River in Montana and the seven Missouri River main stem dams in Montana and the Dakotas.

Linke has about 40 years of experience in the electrical power industry. He began his federal career at WAPA in January 1983, holding positions in maintenance, construction, power billing, marketing, and operations of high-voltage transmission systems and hydroelectric generation facilities within UGP and the Alaska Power Administration. In September 1995, Linke accepted the administrator position at Alaska Power Administration. After that, Linke returned to WAPA in May 1996 as the UGP Maintenance Engineering Manager, and in May 2000, he became the VP of Power Operations for Upper Great Plains in Watertown, South Dakota, which was his most recent role before becoming regional manager.

As an industry leader, Linke also serves on several external committees including as a director on the Midwest Reliability Organization Board and Organizational Group Oversight Committee; member of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation Reliability Security Technical Committee; and member of the Southwest Power Pool Members Committee, Corporate Governance Committee and Markets and Operations Policy Committee.

Linke holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from North Dakota State University and was raised in Bismarck, North Dakota.