Laura McCarten is Regional Vice President of Northern States Power, Minnesota, which encompasses the company’s service areas in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota. Laura is responsible for state government, community and media relations, and stakeholder outreach in all 3 states, and the regulatory interface in North Dakota and South Dakota. Laura graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with a nuclear engineering degree and began working at Northern States Power in 1979. In the energy business for more than 30 years, Laura has extensive experience in utility operations, customer and community relations, and energy policy issues. NSP-MN is an operating company of Xcel Energy, an electric and gas utility with service territory in eight Western and Midwestern states, serving 3.3 million electricity customers and 1.8 million natural gas customers.