Two inducted into Rutgers Board of Governors

• A trustee governor, Stewart’s term runs through 2021.
• Stewart was a founder/co-founder of several biotechnology companies.
• Rigby joins the board as a public governor appointed by Gov. Chris Christie and confirmed by the state Senate.
• Rigby is chair, president and chief executive officer of Pepco Holdings Inc.

NEW BRUNSWICK – Two alumni will join the Rutgers Board of Governors.

Sandy J. Stewart, past chair of the Rutgers Board of Trustees and an alumnus of the university, and Joseph M. Rigby, chair, president and chief executive officer of Pepco Holdings Inc. (PHI), a regional energy holding company that provides utility service to about 2 million customers, were inducted at Thursday’s meeting, according to a statement.

A trustee governor, Stewart’s term runs through 2021. Stewart also was elected to the Rutgers University-Camden Board of Directors.

Rigby joins the board as a public governor appointed by Gov. Chris Christie and confirmed by the state Senate. His term also runs through 2021.

Stewart, who earned a Bachelor of Arts from Rutgers-Camden’s College of Arts and Sciences in 1981 and a Master of Science from the Graduate School at Rutgers-Camden in 1987, was first appointed to the Board of Trustees in 2006. He is a retired highly respected biotech industry entrepreneur and scientist, the statement said.

Stewart also is a member of the Rutgers University Foundation’s Board of Overseers and the Rutgers University-Camden Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Leadership Council.

“We are delighted that Mr. Stewart will continue his distinguished service at Rutgers as a member of the Board of Governors,” Rutgers President Robert Barchi said in the statement. “We especially look forward to capitalizing on his expertise in the field of biotechnology, which is a vital contributor to the health of the state’s economy.”

Stewart was a founder/co-founder of several biotechnology companies, including Paradigm Genetics (now Cogenics Icoria Inc.), Arcanum Discovery and Immunovation. The companies spanned functional genomics, proteomics and metabolomics into drug development.

He began his biotech career at the pharmaceutical company Novartis and most recently helped advance technology at Metabolon, both in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

Among his many awards and honors are the 1995 Ciba AgriNova International Award, the 1998 Center for Entrepreneurial Development Start-up of the Year, and 2000 runner-up for Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year.

A former resident of Medford, Stewart lives in New Hill, North Carolina.

Rigby graduated from the Rutgers University-Camden College of Arts and Sciences in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and is a member of the school’s executive advisory board. He was inducted to the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni in 2013, the statement said.

Rigby joined PHI subsidiary Atlantic City Electric, which serves South Jersey, in 1979 and advanced through management positions in the PHI family of companies, which include Potomac Electric Power Co. (Pepco), serving Washington, D.C., and suburban Maryland, and Delmarva Power, an electric and gas utility serving Delaware and the rest of the Delmarva Peninsula. His responsibilities included accounting, financial services, treasury operations, business transformation, human resources and the Atlantic City Electric-Delmarva Power merger transition team.

Following the merger that formed a new company, Conectiv, he held several executive positions and was elected president of Conectiv Power Delivery in 2002. From May 2004 to September 2007, he served as senior vice president and chief financial officer of PHI. Rigby went on to serve as executive vice president and chief operating officer of PHI and in March 2008, was elected PHI’s president and chief operating officer, adding responsibility for the holding company’s competitive energy businesses, Conectiv Energy and Pepco Energy Services. He was elected president, CEO and chair in 2009.

“Mr. Rigby has achieved impressive accomplishments in the utilities industry, and the breadth of his business expertise will serve the Board of Governors and the entire Rutgers community well,” Barchi said.

Rigby, who lives in Elkton, Maryland, is immediate past chair of the United Way of the National Capital Area. He is a member of the senior council of the Greater Washington Board of Trade and served as its chair. He also serves on the boards of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Edison Electric Institute, the Federal City Council, the Greater Washington Initiative and the Economic Club of Washington.

A licensed certified public accountant in New Jersey with an MBA from Monmouth University, Rigby is a member of the New Jersey Society of CPAs and the American Institute of CPAs.