Chair
PUF's Steve Mitnick: When we spoke previously, you called the state of the electric power industry "dynamic." Would you use the same term to talk about the Michigan Public Service Commission?
Chair Talberg: On any given day, we can be dealing with an issue where we're looking back to the early 1900s case law dealing with regulation of railroads to inform a current issue that we're facing. We are also addressing issues like cybersecurity and uncharted territory.
Internally at the Commission, it's fairly dynamic. The Commission hired a lot of Staff in the '70s and early '80s and then went a couple of decades with very few new hires.
People stayed here at the Commission, so we have tremendous expertise - such as accountants, auditors, and engineers that have been here more than forty years.
We also had authorization to increase the number of Staff, so there's been a lot of changes on the staffing front, bringing in new talent and celebrating people's public service for many decades with retirements.