O&R's Drier Promoted to Marketing Post

PEARL RIVER, NY January 26, 2005 — Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc. has promoted Cecille Drier, a 17-year veteran of the Company's Corporate Communications Department, to the post of Manager – Marketing Communications.

In her new position, Drier will develop and implement communications strategies to promote the Company's programs, products and services to its customers through advertising, consumer publications, trade shows and incentives. She also will coordinate the Company's Customer Satisfaction Survey.

Alan Freedman, O&R's Director – Public Affairs, said, "Cecille is a savvy, seasoned communications professional. She's creative, resourceful and effective. And, she has had broad experience in successfully addressing the major issues facing not only this Company but the industry as well."

Since joining O&R in 1988 as a Senior Writer, Drier has assumed a variety of communications duties with increasingly greater responsibility. Most recently, she served as Manager-Consumer Publications.

Before she joined O&R, Drier worked as the director of public/community relations for a St. Louis health-care conglomerate. Prior to that, she was a visiting lecturer in the Science Awareness Program at Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville.

Drier earned a B.S. in English, Biology and Secondary Education from Lindenwood College in St. Charles, Missouri and an M.A. in English Literature from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. Drier, who also holds a teaching certificate in English and a Reading Instruction Certificate, has undergone training in conducting focus group research for the electric and gas utility industry.

She has put that training to good use by conducting focus groups and utilizing research findings to make specific Company programs and service more customer friendly.

Drier also played a key role in one of the most ambitious, complex and successful communications projects in O&R's history – the redesign of the O&R internet website.

She acted as content manager for the redesign team. That successful redesign resulted in her, and the other members of the team she served on, winning a Company Annual Achievement Award in 2003.

Throughout her career, Drier has been actively engaged in both community and professional organizations. She currently serves on the Company's Multicultural Advisory Committee and is the former Company representative to the N.J. Customer Education Committee on Energy Choice.

She is a member of the Monroe Temple of Liberal Judaism where she is currently a member of the Membership Committee and the Foundation Committee. Formerly, she served on the Newsletter Committee.

Drier resides in Monroe, N.Y. with her daughter, Eliana.

Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc. (O&R), a wholly owned subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc., one of the nation's largest investor-owned energy companies, is a regulated utility. It provides electric service to approximately 289,778 customers in southeastern New York State (where it's franchise name is Orange & Rockland), northern New Jersey (where it's Rockland Electric Company) and northeastern Pennsylvania (where it's Pike County Light & Power Company) and natural gas service to approximately 123,247 customers in New York and Pennsylvania.