Topeka ? Financially troubled Westar Energy Inc. announced Friday that William B. Moore, 50, had been named executive vice president and chief operations officer.

But a Westar spokeswoman said Moore of Wichita was not a replacement for executive vice president Douglas Lake, who resigned from the company’s board of directors and was put on indefinite, unpaid administrative leave earlier this month.

Lake has not resigned from his job, spokeswoman Karla Olsen said. In recent years Lake has been Westar’s only executive vice president, but he carries the title of chief strategic officer, not chief operations officer, Olsen said.

If Lake leaves the company, he could be eligible for a settlement package worth up to $15 million.

Utility regulators have ordered Westar to restructure and criticized management’s business decisions.

Also, former Westar president and CEO David Wittig resigned last month after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he and a friend defrauded a bank.

Wittig was replaced by Jim Haines, a former Westar executive who left the company in 1996.

Like Haines, Moore has a history at Westar. He worked in a variety of jobs with Westar’s predecessor companies from 1978 to 2000, when he left as executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer of Western Resources.

Most recently, he was a senior managing director and senior adviser for Saber Partners LLC, a firm that advises energy companies.

He begins his Westar duties Monday.