ComEd ad spokeswoman near the center of power Strobel puts human face on utility's promises

If the name Pam Strobel doesn't ring a bell, this just might:She's the strawberry-blond woman wearing a bomber jacket inCommonwealth Edison television commercials. In one, she's standing infront of an electric substation asking you, the viewer, to take alook at the new ComEd.

"We're not asking you to forget," she says earnestly, tellingviewers and displaying its new slogan that the utility is"reCommitEd" to its customers. Strobel says she can't promise thatthere will never be an electrical outage in Chicago. But in the ads,and to anyone who asks, she vows that it will never be as bad as thatunforgettable summer of 1999, when the Loop went dark, thousands ofhot Chicagoans …