About Us

From the Appalachian foothills to the Gulf of Mexico, Alabama offers a diversity of people, landscapes and industries. Alabama is a state of 4.5 million people who still display friendly Southern hospitality for which the region is famous. But don’t let that fool you. Alabama is fast becoming an industrial powerhouse.

Alabama is home to three major international auto manufacturers (Mercedes, Honda and Hyundai), and the nation’s fastest growing hub of aircraft design and manufacturing (Boeing and European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company). German steel giant ThyssenKrupp chose Alabama for a $4.6 billion steel mill, its largest capital investment in the company’s 199-year history.

The slower pace of life, combined with vigorous industrial and business growth, gives Alabama the best of both worlds. Alabamians take time to enjoy their successes, exemplified by the state’s rich tradition of college football and reaching to the world-renowned Alabama Shakespeare Festival theater. From the history of civil rights in Birmingham to the frontier of space in Huntsville to the nationally recognized Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, Alabama is a great place to live.

Alabama Power's Economic Development History

Alabama Power is one of four utilities operated by Southern Company (NYSE: SO), one of the nation’s largest electricity producers. With 6,800 employees, Alabama Power serves more than 1.4 million customers in the southern two-thirds of the state. The company has 14 hydroelectric dams, six steam power generating plants and one nuclear facility.

But Alabama Power – which celebrated its 100-year anniversary in 2006 – does more than make electricity. It was one of the first utilities in the United States to create an economic development department and still plays a major role in recruiting business and industry.

As early as 1913, the company established a Commercial and New Business Division. In 1920, APC President Tom Martin officially formed a New Industries Division, the first at an electric-utility company. He began an advertising campaign to tell the rest of the nation what Alabama had to offer. One of the first new industries the company successfully recruited was the Pepperell Manufacturing Company, which built its plant in Opelika. For decades, Alabama Power's industrial recruitment program was the only one in the state.

The availability of affordable, reliable electricity led the federal government to build several military bases and defense industries in Alabama during World War II, bringing growth and jobs to the state.

When the war ended, defense facilities were abandoned and Alabama Power led the effort to find new occupants. Under Martin's direction, the company funded research to prove that pine trees - a plentiful commodity in Alabama - could be used to produce paper. That research helped bring the Coosa River Newsprint Company to the state in 1947, as well as other pulp and paper manufacturers in years.

Most recently, Alabama Power played an important role in bringing another new industry to Alabama that would transform the state's economy - the automotive industry.

"As sellers of power, it is the purpose of the company to secure users of large units of power," Martin once noted. "And it then becomes the business of the company to develop the community by every possible means. As Alabama grows, so will the company."

Alabama Power continues to play a major role in economic and community development. The company has helped bring hundreds of industrial and commercial customers to the state, which, in turn, has brought thousands of jobs, millions of dollars in tax revenue and an improvement in the overall quality of life.

Call us at 1-800-718-2726 or send us an e-mail today to start learn more about amazing Alabama.