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Forum Participants' Biographies
July 12, 1996
Alvin Alexanderson
Alexanderson is vice president for rates and regulatory affairs at Portland General Electric Company. His responsibilities include least-cost planning and demand-side resource evaluation. He received his bachelor of science degree from Hillsdale College and his law degree from the University of Michigan School of Law. He served as assistant attorney general for Oregon from 1972 to 1979, emphasizing economic regulation and antitrust law. He joined PGE in 1979 and has served as deputy general counsel, vice president of finance and president of Portland General Exchange, a power marketing affiliate.
His legal practice and his marketing and rates management experience covers a wide range of retail and wholesale pricing questions. He frequently represents investor-owned utility associations in matters involving wholesale power and transmission pricing.
Saralynn Baker-Sifford
Since 1990, Baker-Sifford has been general manager of the Oregon Rural Electric Cooperative Association (ORECA). She directs the operation of the 17-member trade association representing Oregon's rural electric cooperative utilities. Prior to being named general manager, Baker-Sifford was the public affairs director, representing the Association's members on all issues before the Oregon legislature, state and local agencies, and the public.
Baker-Sifford earned a bachelor's degree in arts and political science from Oregon State University.
Lorraine Bodi
Bodi is an attorney and co-director of the Northwest office of American Rivers. She has worked, lectured and written on fish, water and power conflicts in the region for almost 18 years. In 1980, she was a member of the ad hoc group that drafted the fish provisions of the Northwest Power Act.
She was formerly counsel for the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Ken Canon
Since 1981, Canon has represented Industrial Customers of Northwest Utilities (ICNU) as its executive director. ICNU represents its members' electric energy interests before the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), the Northwest Power Planning Council, with individual utilities and in other forums. In addition, Canon is the managing director of the Association of Public Agency Customers, a subset of ICNU. He also participates in BPA rate proceedings.
Prior to 1981, Canon represented industries in legislative and regulatory arenas as the assistant general counsel for Associated Oregon Industries. Canon graduated from Willamette University Law School and is a partner in the Canon & Hutton law firm. His partner, Mary Ann Hutton, represents the Northwest Industrial Gas Users.
John Carr
Carr is the executive director of Direct Service Industries, Inc., an organization of eight Pacific Northwest aluminum and chemical companies purchasing electric energy directly from the bulk power market. Prior to being appointed to his current position, he was a senior staff member in Washington, D.C., for the Undersecretary of Energy, following national and international energy issues.
Carr has bachelor of science and master of science degrees in mathematics from Central Washington University. He also holds a master of arts in economics from Washington University.
Chuck Collins
Since 1981, Collins has been president of the Collapse West Corporation in Seattle, Washington. Prior to that he served as vice president and general manager at Polyform, U.S., Ltd.; transit director at Seattle Metro; and county administrator in King County. From 1981 through 1985 Collins was a member of the Northwest Power Planning Council, serving as chair from 1984 to 1985. Currently, he chairs the State Commission on Student Learning and is a board member for the Washington Dental Service, Inc.
Collins earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Gonzaga University in 1965, and a master's in public administration from the University of Washington in 1970.
Charles B. Curtis
Charles Curtis is deputy secretary of the Department of Energy, in August 1995 following confirmation by the U.S. Senate. His appointment and confirmation in August 1995 followed his term as the Department's undersecretary, where he had served since February 1994. Prior to joining the Department of Energy, Curtis was a senior partner in the Washington law firm of Van Ness, Feldman & Curtis, practicing administrative law in a wide variety of energy and financial matters. Curtis received his bachelor of science and bachelor of arts degrees from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst in 1962. In 1965 he received a juris doctorate with honors from Boston University School of Law.
Mark Crisson
Crisson is the director of utilities, chief executive officer of Tacoma Public Utilities. Prior to his appointment to that position in 1993, he was the deputy director of utilities, Tacoma City Light. He serves on the boards of directors of the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee, the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce, the Tacoma-Pierce County Economic Development Board, and the American Public Power Association.
Crisson has a bachelor of science degree in applied engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and a master's of business administration degree from Pacific Lutheran University.
Jim Davis
Davis is a commissioner on the boards of the Douglas County Public Utility District in East Wenatchee, Washington. He also is a fourth-generation wheat farmer.
He holds a bachelor of arts degree in education from Eastern Washington University.
Bill Drummond
Drummond is the manager of Western Montana Electric Generating and Transmission Co-op, Inc. in Missoula, Montana. The Cooperative provides power planning and conservation services for its seven members: six rural cooperatives and one tribal utility. Prior to joining the Cooperative in 1994, Drummond was the manager of the Public Power Council in Portland, an association of 115 publicly and cooperatively owned electric utilities in the Northwest. His educational background includes degrees in forestry from the University of Montana and economics from the University of Arizona.
S. Peter Forsyth
Forsyth is vice president of Northwest regional affairs at Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation. He has responsibility for the company's Northwest power and external affairs, including environmental and governmental affairs. Forsyth is responsible for the energy requirements of Kaiser's three major Washington facilities: Mead and Trentwood in Spokane and Tacoma, and for the company's overseas operations in Ghana and Wales.
He is current president of the Direct Service Industries, an association of industries that purchases electric energy directly from the bulk power market.
Bob Gannon
Gannon is president and chief executive officer of the Montana Power Company, where he has worked for more than 20 years. Before joining Montana Power in 1974 as an attorney, he served two years as an assistant attorney general for the State of Montana, and another two and a half years as assistant U.S. attorney for Montana.
Gannon is a native of Butte, Montana. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a bachelor's degree in government. He earned his law degree in 1969 from the University of Montana and completed the Harvard University Advanced Management Program in 1989.
K.C. Golden
Currently an energy consultant based in Seattle, Golden was formerly the policy director and executive director for the Northwest Conservation Act Coalition, a regional alliance of public interest groups, utilities and businesses working for a clean, affordable Northwest energy future. He was a Kennedy Fellow, obtaining a master's in public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He has also worked at the Tennessee Valley Authority, at Harvard's Energy and Environmental Policy Center, and as a raft and canoe guide in California and New England. He served on the Washington Energy Strategy Committee, the Energy Facility Siting Process Review Committee, the Washington State Building Code Council and the Washington Energy Options Steering Committee. In addition to his master's degree, he has a bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley.
Randall Hardy
Hardy was sworn in as the administrator and chief executive officer of the Bonneville Power Administration in 1991. He previously served seven years as superintendent of Seattle City Light. In April, Hardy was elected Chairman of the Electric Power Research Institute.
Hardy graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1966 and spent nine years as a naval officer. He has a master's degree in public administration from the University of Washington.
Marty Kanner
Kanner is president of Kanner & Associates, a government relations consulting firm specializing in energy and environmental matters. Kanner represents the Public Power Council before Congress and federal agencies. He played an active role during congressional consideration of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 and on various issues affecting Bonneville and the Northwest energy system. Prior to forming Kanner & Associates, he served for six years on the government relations staff of the American Public Power Association.
James W. Litchfield
Litchfield is president of the Litchfield Consulting Group. The Group's clients include public and private utilities, independent power producers, regulatory agencies and regional planning commissions. Litchfield's consulting focuses on the utility industry's strategic planning, power contracting, regulatory and resource decisions. Litchfield was a member of the Snake River Salmon Recovery Team that developed recommendations for recovering endangered Snake River salmon.
Prior to forming his consulting practice, Litchfield was the director of power planning for the Northwest Power Planning Council. He has a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from the University of Washington and a master's degree in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jan Packwood
Packwood is vice president of the Idaho Power Company's bulk power markets business unit. He is responsible for the corporate resources that produce, market and deliver all of the company's electrical output. He is a 26-year veteran of the utility industry with extensive experience in the engineering, construction, operation and maintenance of electrical systems.
He is chairman-elect of the Western System Coordinating Council, an association of more than 70 utilities, independent power producers and power marketers responsible for the reliability of the electrical grid in the western United States.
Packwood has a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Nevada, a master's degree in business administration from Boise State University, and he is a graduate of the Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program.
Margaret Pageler
Pageler is a member of the Seattle City Council, where she was first elected in 1991. She chaired the Council's Public Safety Committee for four years. She was appointed to chair the Council's Utilities and Environmental Management Committee in 1996. Pageler received a juris doctorate from the University of Chicago and worked for 10 years for the Seattle law firm of Stoel Rives. Her legal work included representing public utility districts in litigation and regulatory matters.
Sara Patton
Patton is the director of the Northwest Conservation Act Coalition. The Coalition is a regional alliance of public interest groups, utilities and businesses working for a clean, affordable Northwest energy.
Patton graduated from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C. She is a member of the Washington State Bar Association.
Norman B. Rice
Seattle Mayor Norman B. Rice is in his second term in office. He was first elected mayor in 1989 after spending 11 years on the Seattle City Council, and he was re-elected in 1993. His current term expires the end of 1997. In June 1995, he was elected president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, an association of more than 1,000 of America's largest cities.
Rice has a bachelor's degree in communications and a master's degree in public administration from the University of Washington.
John Saven
Saven is executive director of Northwest Requirements Utilities, which includes approximately 40 utilities, located in six states, that are full requirements customers of the Bonneville Power Administration. These utilities are primarily small and rural, and may have significant agricultural electrical loads. He also provides executive staff support to two organizations: Northwest Irrigation Utilities and the Non-Generating Public Utilities Group.
As a consultant, Saven focused on financial analysis in the public sector. He served as deputy superintendent of finance and administration for Seattle City Light from 1983 to 1992. Prior to that, he was budget director for the City of Seattle. He obtained a bachelor of science degree from Syracuse University in 1970, and a master's degree in public administration from the University of Washington in 1972.
Rachel Shimshak
Shimshak is the director of the Renewable Northwest Project, a project launched in 1994 by a coalition of environmental groups, energy developers and public interest organizations to focus on the implementation of cost-effective and workable renewable technologies. Before her move to the Northwest, Shimshak was the policy director for the Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources. Prior to that, she served as legislative director for the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group. She began her advocacy career in 1979 working for Public Citizen's Congress Watch, Ralph Nader's watchdog group on Capitol Hill. She graduated from the University of Oregon.
Last modified: July 19, 1996
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