The company was founded on January 28, 1981, as Applied Energy Services by Roger Sant and Dennis Bakke, two appointees of the Federal Energy Administration under president Richard Nixon. The company was initially a consulting firm; it became AES Corporation, which went public in 1991. Sant was chairman, CEO, and president and Bakke was executive vice president until assuming the position of president in 1987. Bakke would later become the company's CEO in 1994, serving for 8 years until his resignation in 2002, in the midst of a liquidity crisis that followed the collapse of the energy giant Enron. Sant remained as executive chairman until 2003 and as a member of the board until 2006. hhhhhhhhh jhjnbhjjjjjjjjjjjjj jbjkbb