State Commissions
Joey Chen is Senior Advisor to Chair Jason Stanek 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 this role at the Commission?
Joey Chen: I have a background in academia. I graduated college with a bachelor's degree in neuroscience and went on to get a master's degree in pharmacology. I wasn't on track to become an energy regulator or energy lawyer. Instead, I worked at a couple of universities doing research in molecular biology.
While I was on this research path, I took business school classes and found I enjoyed discussing policy issues, and particularly where policy meets law. From there, I went to law school.
Afterward, I clerked for a judge in Baltimore City, and after my clerkship, I joined a law firm practicing commercial litigation. It was there that I was introduced to the Maryland PSC.