A Day at the Indiana URC
David Ober is a commissioner for the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.
It was May when the PUF team traveled to Indianapolis and received a warm welcome at the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. Commissioners and Staff educated us about Indy, also known as Circle City, as the statehouse was planned around Monument Circle. It's reminiscent of Washington, and not surprising as a surveyor for Pierre L'Enfant, who designed our nation's capital city, with its many traffic circles, helped design the Indy town plan.
PUF: How did you become a Commissioner?
Commissioner Ober: I've been with the Commission since April of 2018. Before coming to the Commission, I was a legislator from northeast Indiana, representing several counties in the northeast corner, for six years. The last two years of my service at the Statehouse were as Chairman of the Utilities, Energy, and Telecommunications Committee. Through that experience, I learned a lot about these issues, and was engaged in a lot of different policy decisions that were made in those last two years.
When former Chairman Jim Atterholt decided that he was going to retire from public service and leave the Commission, there was the opportunity to take my experience and come across the street. I applied for the job, among several other candidates, and I was appointed by Governor Holcomb.