State Commissions
Ryan "Chuck" McLean is Chief Public Utility Law Judge 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 Commission?
Chuck McLean: Right out of law school, I joined the Air Force as a Judge Advocate General. I'd had an internship between my second and third year with the Army JAG at Fort Meade, Maryland, and I enjoyed it.
I was in the Air Force for four and a half years. I got a lot of trial experience with juries. In 2003, I was deployed for four and a half months and was the only attorney for approximately eight hundred deployed personnel in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
I deployed to Diego Garcia, a small British island just below the equator. If you put your finger on the tip of India and go south, it's right there. There's just enough room to have a landing strip, so the Air Force ran bombers from there to Iraq and Afghanistan. I was my own boss, calling all the shots, advising my commander, and briefing pilots on the rules of engagement.