Director
Tammy Mitchell is Director of the Office of Electric, Gas, and Water at the New York Public Service Commission.
The New York Public Service Commission and New York Department of Public Service oversee a mandate in New York's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, to cut greenhouse gas emissions forty percent by 2030 and no less than eighty-five percent by 2050 from 1990 levels. All that, while carrying on its regulatory business in the public interest. The five hundred-plus dedicated Staff of the New York Department of Public Service are up to all these tasks. They are the Staff arm of the seven-member New York Public Service Commission.
PUF's Lori Burkhart: How did your background lead you to becoming the Director of the Office of Electric, Gas, and Water?
Tammy Mitchell: I am an engineer. I received a bachelor's in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. I began my career at the Department thirty-one years ago as a junior engineer.
At the time I came in, I had little knowledge of what the Department of Public Service or the Public Service Commission did. It was not my intent to go into public service. I had planned to go into manufacturing, but I found myself here with this opportunity.
I came into what was then called the Power Division in the electric rates section. Some of the first issues I worked on were designing time-of-use rates.