 | Valerie A. Lemmie |
Commissioner Valerie A. Lemmie was appointed to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) by Governor Bob Taft in 2006 and reappointed by Governor Ted Strickland in 2007. Ms. Lemmie is active in state regulatory organizations, including serving as president-elect of the Organization of MISO States (OMS), a Board Director of the National Regulatory Research Institute (NRRI) and a member of the Financial Research Institute Advisory Board at the University of Missouri, her alma mater. She is also immediate past president of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) where she is a NAPA Fellow.
Prior to her appointment as Commissioner, Ms. Lemmie had a distinguished career in local government serving as city manager for the cities of Petersburg, Virginia, Dayton and Cincinnati Ohio. Early in her public service career, Ms. Lemmie was the deputy director of the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs where she was responsible for the oversight of state regulatory functions, including land use and zoning, facility citing and permitting, and environmental standards and protection. She was later appointed Arlington County, Virginia’s first Director of Environmental Services.
Over the course of her local government career, Ms. Lemmie has directed and provided oversight of municipal utilities, including water and sewer services, a major waste-to-energy facility and landfills with methane gas recovery sold to the energy grid. She also served as the local government representative on President Clinton’s Greenhouse Gas Advisory Committee and more recently as the local government member of House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s Committee on Urban Redevelopment.
Ms. Lemmie has been an adjunct professor at both Howard University and the University of Dayton, teaching courses in consumer affairs and public administration. She has also been a Fellow at the Center for Excellence in Municipal Management at George Washington University and a scholar-in-residence at the Kettering Foundation.
A published author and speaker on public policy and state regulatory issues nationally and internationally, Ms. Lemmie earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Urban Sociology from the University of Missouri and a master’s degree in Urban Affairs/Public Policy Planning from Washington University. She has completed post graduate work in economics at Virginia State University and executive leadership programs at Harvard University and the University of Virginia.
