State Commissions
Lisa Smith is Director of Legislative Affairs at the Maryland Public Service Commission.
The PUF team had a warm welcome at the PSC offices in Baltimore on the upper floors of the William Donald Schaefer building. Maryland punches well above its weight, with an expansive grid modernization portfolio, ambitious electric vehicle and charging programs, utility-scale batteries deployed as grid assets, and more, backed up by a diverse renewable generation portfolio and nuclear power at the Calvert Cliffs plant.
PUF's Lori Burkhart: How did your background lead you to the Maryland Commission?
Lisa Smith: I started at the Maryland Commission as the Director of Legislative Affairs in January 2019. It was the beginning of the legislative session, which runs from January to April, and is a ninety-day session in Maryland.
Prior to that, I had been a Director of Legislative Affairs at various other agencies, and my experience is primarily with local and state governments in legislation and policy. I'd done a bit of labor law, and transportation, and spent a number of years working in the area of criminal justice.
This was a shift in terms of the subject matter but there was continuity in terms of being in Annapolis, the legislative session, and representing a state agency. It was an exciting new challenge for me, as I got to work with new committees that I hadn't been working with closely before, such as the House Economic Matters Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.