2025: Shares of Duluth-based utility Allete have traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 1950, but a deal announced earlier this year would end that. Under Bethany Owen’s leadership, Allete is set to be acquired by Canada’s pension board and New York City-based investor Global Infrastructure Partners for an estimated $6.2 billion. Allete’s shareholders signed off on the deal in August, and the company expects it to close in mid-2025. As Owen sees it, private investors will help provide ready access to the capital Allete needs for a transition to clean energy. "Our new partners believe in our Sustainability-in-Action strategy and in our talented teams that work each and every day to bring our strategy to life."

2021: Duluth-based Allete’s largest subsidiary, Minnesota Power, has been northern Minnesota’s electricity utility for more than a century. Under CEO Al Hodnik, the company expanded into wind-energy development, a business it now operates in seven states. Minnesota Power also shed much of its coal-fired generation. In February, Bethany Owen, who joined Allete as an attorney in 2002, succeeded Hodnik. She intends to build on the company’s sustainability efforts and clean-energy development. One issue she faces as CEO: Allete’s biggest electricity customers are iron mines and paper mills, which were hit hard in 2020 and are coming back slowly.