From the perspective of Phil Herrington, DPL Inc.’s new president and CEO, the Miami Valley will continue to gradually rebound from the Great Recession.

Herrington, who has been on the job since March, expects a steady recovery.

“It’ll be a slow emergence out of the trough,” Herrington, 50, said. “We are not predicting a rapid uptick in demand. We see a slow growth in the Dayton area, and we are looking forward to it.”

DPL’s primary business unit is the Dayton Power & Light Co. Overall energy use for residential and business customers in DP&L’s service area is projected to increase 0.5 percent per year on average over the next 10 years. For commercial and industrial energy users, the average annual increase is projected to be 0.3 percent before energy efficiency programs and other energy reduction efforts.

He said the utility has plenty of generation capacity to handle the demand and does not expect to add any new power facilities. “Our focus is on running what we have and running it well,” he said.

The utility is still evaluating its older O.H. Hutchings coal-burning facility in Miamisburg for its potential to switch to natural gas. Hutchings faces closure from tougher environmental rules.

Before coming to DPL, he was president of Global Wind Generation for AES Corp., the parent company of DPL. He led corporation’s worldwide wind generation portfolio. Before joining AES, Herrington spent 20 years with Edison Mission Group, a subsidiary of Edison International. EMG is a global energy company based in California which runs competitive power generation businesses with assets in coal, natural gas and wind, as well as energy marketing and trading operations.

Before that Herrington was a project manager with Monsanto Chemical Company’s engineering group in St. Louis. He also served in the Navy as a submarine officer.

Herrington holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara and an MBA from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.