Chief Hearing Examiner
Alex Skirpan is the Chief Hearing Examiner at the Virginia State Corporation Commission.
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?