Power Profile: Catina (Tina) Shannon, director, Government Relations, Ameren Missouri

Catina (Tina) Shannon’s desire to give back to her community has led her on a career path that started with campaigning in her teens and now has her leading Ameren Missouri’s government relations team. 

“I have had the pleasure of working for some great people to do one of the things I love the most: give back to my community,” Shannon said. She has served as chief of staff for Sen. Paula Carter, deputy director of legislative affairs for Gov. Bob Holden, conference coordinator for the Missouri Legislative Black Caucus Foundation, and several other political roles before joining Ameren Missouri as a legislative representative in 2005. 

But her desire to give back has not been limited to her career. Shannon routinely volunteers her time and has recently added another opportunity to help her community. In early June, Gov. Mike Parson appointed Shannon to the Lincoln University Board of Curators. 

“One of my ways of giving back is to serve on this board and see how I can help the university propel itself into the future. I feel honored and privileged,” said Shannon. Lincoln University is the oldest of two historically black colleges in Missouri, she noted as she pointed to its rich history in providing affordable education to youth -- particularly black and brown children. “I’ve been afforded these blessings in life, and now I am going to give back.”

Shannon plans to use the skills she has honed throughout her career to aid the university -- the same skills that have been instrumental in passing meaningful legislation. 

After years of working (and failing) to get significant energy infrastructure legislation across the finish line, Shannon took the lead in rethinking Ameren Missouri’s approach in 2018. On the advice of a state representative, who “had a niche at bringing together the right people to pass powerful and meaningful legislation,” the proposal was pared down so that it was “short and sweet and to the point.”

Ameren Missouri did a great job maintaining the energy grid, but to move into the next century with reliable power they had to upgrade their system to be more compatible with today’s technology. Shannon pointed out people want more than just flipping a switch for the light to come on, they want to be able to use multiple digital devices reliably. 

“It was important for us to look at the future and where we wanted to go, and then we backtracked on how to get there, and the way we needed to get there was by the upgrading of our old and aging infrastructure,” Shannon said. “It was a win-win for everyone when we finally got that passed in 2018.”

A similar strategy was used this year in expanding and extending that legislation. Shannon and her team at Ameren Missouri were able to get that legislation over the finish line in the first attempt. “We did have our challenges, which we were able to overcome by leaning on what we had been able to accomplish so far,” Shannon said. “We delivered on our promises from 2018, and now things are changing even more.”