Virginia SCC: Alex Skirpan

Deck: 

Chief Hearing Examiner

Fortnightly Magazine - June 2021
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PUF was delighted at the opportunity to travel to Richmond virtually to visit the home of the Virginia State Corporation Commission. The Commission is a unique regulatory body with authority over utilities, insurance, state-chartered financial institutions, securities, retail franchising, railroads, and well, a long laundry list. No wonder the Commission employs over six-hundred Staff. 
 

PUF's Lori Burkhart: Talk about your background that led you to the Commission.

Alex Skirpan: I started as a utility analyst with the West Virginia Public Service Commission. After receiving my CPA, I worked for about ten years with a consulting firm in Richmond, Virginia, where I testified on revenue requirements. I appeared in about a hundred and twenty dockets in sixteen states and before FERC during that period of time.

I went back to law school and practiced law with a firm in Richmond for about five years, doing utility matters for the most part. Then the former Chief Hearing Examiner and his wife made a decision to sell everything they had, buy a sailboat, and sail around the world. I ended up at the Commission as a result.

PUF: As Chief Hearing Examiner, how do you interact with Staff and the Commissioners and are there ex parte rules concerning that?

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