Dwayne Hart Joins UtiliCorp as Chief Financial Officer

Business Wire, August 4, 1999

KANSAS CITY, Mo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 4, 1999--

UtiliCorp United (NYSE: UCU) today announced that Dwayne L. Hart will join the company September 1 as senior vice president and chief financial officer.

Reporting to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard C. Green, Jr., he will be responsible for all treasury and accounting functions and finance activity.

A certified public accountant with extensive experience in the energy industry, Hart was previously vice president and controller of Enron Capital & Trade Resources Corp., based in Houston. He joined Enron in 1996 and was responsible for audit support of a broad range of domestic and international activities including regulated utility operations, project valuation, energy trading, risk management, market intelligence and facilities development.

Prior to joining Enron he served as a manager for Arthur Andersen & Co. in Houston handling audits, SEC reporting and efficiency and rate studies.

Hart earned a bachelor of business administration degree in accounting from Texas A&M University.

UtiliCorp is an international electric and gas company with more than 4.5 million customers across the U.S. and in Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. Based in Kansas City, Missouri, the Fortune 500 company operates regulated electric and gas utilities in eight states and one Canadian province and through the Aquila Energy subsidiary markets natural gas and electricity across most of North America. For 1998, Aquila was ranked the second-largest wholesale marketer of natural gas in the U.S. and the third-largest marketer of electricity. UtiliCorp's internet home page is at www.utilicorp.com.