Robert D. Gabbard is president of PPL EnergyPlus, which manages PPL’s wholesale and competitive retail energy sales and services operation. PPL EnergyPlus markets all the electricity generated by PPL’s domestic power plants, making sales in key U.S. regions, and sells electricity to retail customers in the eastern and western United States.

Gabbard, an industry veteran with two decades of trading experience, also directs PPL’s two trading floors — one in Allentown, Pa., and the other in Butte, Mont. PPL EnergyPlus additionally is responsible for managing the fuel for PPL’s power plants.

Before joining PPL in June 2008, Gabbard served as senior vice president of merchant trading operations of Delaware-based Conectiv Energy since 2005.

A native of Danville, Ky., he began his career as director of marketing and general counsel at Southern Gas Co. in Versailles, Ky. He advanced to vice president of trading and marketing at Southern Gas before joining CMS Energy in 1990 as director of marketing and energy trading.

After seven years at CMS Energy, during which time he advanced to vice president of energy marketing, Gabbard moved to Conectiv Energy as vice president and general manager of power trading in 1998 and was promoted to senior vice president of merchant trading operations seven years later.

Gabbard holds a Bachelor of Arts from Stetson University in DeLand, Fla., and a law degree from the University of Dayton School of Law in Ohio. He is a member of the National Coal Council and the Rail Energy Transportation Advisory Committee.