GPU Energy Year 2000 Staffing Well Exceeds Normal Holiday.

Business Editors

READING, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 23, 1999

It will not be business as usual for employees of GPU Energy across New Jersey and Pennsylvania over the New Year weekend as the company prepares for the new millennium. Many employees who would normally have the holiday weekend off are working as part of GPU Energy's extensive Year 2000 preparedness program.

"On a typical holiday weekend, approximately 70 employees would be scheduled to work. This year, 600 employees will be reporting to work and an additional 300 will be on-call," said GPU Energy Vice President, Human and Technical Resources and Executive Sponsor for the Year 2000 Project Carl Brooks. "As part of our plan, we looked at all critical systems and decided where we would need personnel in the event anything unusual were to happen. In addition to staffing typical infrastructure locations, such as line departments and substations, we are staffing support services. Beyond that, we are also staffing the emergency operations centers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

GPU Energy is Year 2000-Ready, but we have our employees ready to respond should an incident occur." GPU Energy assessed all computers and electrical equipment used to control the flow of power to its 2 million customers across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It has also tested customer billing and communication systems and identified, repaired, retired or replaced and tested any non- Y2K ready equipment.

For information, updates and questions, customers can call the GPU Energy Y2K information line at 1-888-GPU-4Y2K, or visit the GPU website at www.gpu.com.