Virginia Electric and Power Company (VEPCO)
Co-founder 1925Background
A predecessor utility formed in 1925 through consolidation of Virginia electric assets.
Role at Dominion Energy, Inc.
Dominion Energy possesses a deep, historic founding legacy, tracing its roots to the dawn of American infrastructure and the technological revolution that electrified the Deep South. The modern conglomerate is the product of hundreds of historical mergers of small, localized canal, river, and streetcar companies, but the foundational core traces back to 1781 with the creation of the Appomattox Trustees, a project designed to clear the Appomattox River for navigation in Virginia. However, the true corporate ancestor of the modern energy titan is the Virginia Railway and Power Company, founded in 1909 by Frank Jay Gould (the heir to the notorious railroad robber baron Jay Gould). Gould consolidated several bankrupt, fragmented streetcar systems and small electric lighting companies in Richmond and Norfolk into a single, unified grid. This was a capital-intensive undertaking that brought reliable electricity to the state of Virginia. In 1925, the company underwent a restructuring and was renamed the Virginia Electric and Power Company (widely known for a century simply as VEPCO). For decades VEPCO was the undisputed monopoly powering the explosive industrial and residential growth of the region. In 1983, recognizing the need for a holding company to manage its rapidly diversifying operations (which eventually included unregulated natural gas assets), VEPCO reorganized under a new, parent company named Dominion Resources (later rebranded as Dominion Energy). This corporate umbrella allowed the company to execute the aggressive, multi-billion dollar acquisitions that transformed a regional Virginia utility into one of the largest and most powerful energy producers in the United States.