Commissioner Paul Kjellander serves as president of the Idaho Public Utilities Commission, having been appointed to his current six-year term in 2017 by former Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter.
It is Commissioner Kjellander’s second term in his second stint on the Commission, having previously served from January 1999 until October 2007. Gov. Otter reappointed Kjellander in April 2011, following his service as administrator of the newly created state Office of Energy Resources (OER).
A member of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ (NARUC) board of directors, Kjellander serves as Second Vice President of the association and as the NARUC representative to the North American Numbering Council. He previously served as chairman of NARUC’s Committee on Telecommunications, and has served on NARUC’s Committee on Consumer Affairs and its Electricity Committee.
Kjellander also serves on the executive committee of the National Council on Electricity Policy, which is funded by the US Department of Energy and managed by NARUC. He is a member of the Federal Communications Commission’s 706 Joint Board and has served as chairman of the FCC’s Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations.
During his time at OER, Kjellander created an aggressive energy efficiency program funded through the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. He also served on the board of the National Association of State Energy Officials.
Before joining the Commission in 1999, Kjellander was elected to three terms in the Idaho House of Representatives, where he served from 1994 to 1999. As a legislator, Kjellander served on a number of committees, including the House State Affairs, Judiciary and Rules, Ways and Means, Local Government and Transportation. During his final term in office, Kjellander was elected chairman of the House Majority Caucus.
Prior to his legislative service, Kjellander was director of Boise State University’s College of Applied Technology Distance Learning, where he earned tenured faculty status and served as program head of broadcast technology, station manager of BSU Radio Network, director of the Special Projects Unit for BSU Radio and as BSU Radio’s director of News and Public Affairs.
Commissioner Kjellander earned undergraduate degrees in communications, psychology and art from Muskingum College in Ohio, and earned a master’s degree in telecommunications from Ohio University.