Wisconsin Energy troubleshooter takes new post at Menasha Corp.

Wisconsin Energy Corp., which is in the stretch run of its public relations campaign to gain approval to expand its coal plants in Oak Creek, will soon lose its most effective community spokesman for the project.
Michael John has accepted a new job as director public relations for Menasha Corp.
John will resign from his current role as director of public relations and communications for We Power, LLC, a Milwaukee-based subsidiary of Wisconsin Energy.
We Power was created to design, build and own the power plants of the parent company’s "Power the Future" plan.
In his new role, John will report directly Menasha Corp.’s president and chief executive officer, Harold Smethills Jr.
The privately held, Neenah-based manufacturing company serves the packaging, paperboard, material handling, plastics, promotions, printing and food service industries.
Menasha Corp., which reported net sales of more than $1 billion in 2001, operates 70 facilities in eight nations.
John will work out of the company’s Neenah and Menomonee Falls offices.
John has been the main spokesman for We Power since December 2001.
The company’s plan to expand its Oak Creek coal generation plant is part of Wisconsin Energy’s 10-year, $7 billion "Power the Future" campaign to produce more electricity in southeast Wisconsin. The plan also includes the proposed construction of a natural gas-fired plant in Port Washington.
Opposition to the Oak Creek plant expansion has grown in recent weeks with the creation of RESET (Responsible Energy for southeastern Wisconsin’s Tomorrow), a group that contends the Oak Creek plant should be a natural gas-fired plant, rather than a coal-burning plant.
RESET members include Sam Johnson, chairman emeritus of S.C. Johnson & Son, Racine, and Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist. Several smaller companies, as well as All Saints Healthcare, the American Lung Association of Wisconsin and other community groups, have RESET.
John had guided Wisconsin Energy through several public relations challenges since he began as manager of media relations for the company in 1999, including public outrage over electricity shortages and a lawsuit over environmental contamination allegedly done by a firm that had been acquired by the Milwaukee firm.