Our employees are our most valuable resource and our most passionate advocates; we stay connected with them in many ways - new and old. We now host 12 internal blogs - twice what we had in 2008 - that give employees an additional opportunity to voice their opinions and allow our leaders and managers to respond or introduce topics of their own. One blog is hosted by Mike Morris, our chairman, president and chief executive officer. He focuses on the company's performance as well as how factors such as the economy or global climate change are affecting the company. Other blogs are devoted to sustainability, ethics and compliance and other business issues.

As a high-tech alternative to the "suggestion box," we started an "AEP Now Ideas" online system in 2009 to enable our executives to present problems to employees and ask them to submit ideas and vote on the best solutions. One executive challenged employees in 2009 to identify nearly $2 million in budget savings. The call was answered by enthusiastic employees who identified more than $8 million in potential cost savings. This system was recently recognized with an international innovation award; AEP was the first utility to receive this honor.

We held our first employee Sustainability Awareness Week in 2009 to highlight our material issues and how they relate to AEP's sustainability. More than 60 events at 38 work locations in nine states were held, including test drives of plug-in hybrid vehicles, health screenings, electronic equipment recycling, developing energy efficiency e-cards, and town hall meetings.

AEP's senior management ranks in-person contact with employees as a high priority. Mike Morris holds quarterly "Open Mike" sessions with employees. In our Generation business unit, management visited every power plant in 2009 to talk with employees in person about issues ranging from safety, health and culture to operations.

As with any large company with a dispersed employee base, many of our communications are electronic. We produced 39 live webcasts in 2009, providing senior leaders with a way to update employees about earnings, major public policy issues, safety and regulatory topics, sustainability and other matters. Our employees visited our intranet site, AEP Now, more than 10 million times during 2009, an increase of nearly 5 percent over 2008.

We also use technology, social networks and printed publications to expand our outreach internally and externally. We launched a new podcast, "Lights On," in 2009 and established an AEP presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

AEP executives participate in quarterly webcasts where employees can get direct answers to questions about company issues.