California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger named his chief energy adviser as the new chairman of the California Energy Commission (CEC) and a former Reagan Administration treasury official who once headed a major Wall Street credit rating firm as the fifth member of the California Public Utilities Commission. The appointments require state Senate confirmation, but the designates can serve in their respective positions for up to a year without the lawmakers’ confirmation.

Joe Desmond, 41, a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has been Schwarzenegger’s principal energy adviser for the past year, will become CEC chairman, the lead power plant permitting and energy planning agency for the state. Desmond has been the deputy secretary for energy in the Resources Department.

A former CEO of Infotility Inc., an energy consulting and software development firm (1997-2000), and before that, a lighting controls firm, Electronic Lighting Inc. (1991-97), Desmond served as co-chair of the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group’s energy committee from 2001 to last year when the governor tapped him for a state position. He was also a board member in the National Association of Energy Service Companies.

Desmond replaces William Keese, a lawyer, who announced earlier this year he was stepping down after a long tenure heading the CEC through three different gubernatorial administrations.

For the CPUC spot that has remained vacant for the first four months of the year because Schwarzenegger’s original appointee, a Silicon Valley telecommunications entrepreneur, had too many financial conflicts of interest, the California governor named John Bohn, 67, a Harvard law school graduate who most recently was chairman of GlobalNet Venture Partners, a global financial consulting firm.

Schwarzenegger called Bohn “uniquely qualified to understand how regulatory structures impact investment decisions,” noting that his expertise will be particularly important to the state’s current goal of “attracting necessary new investment in energy infrastructure and technology.”

For seven years (1989-96) Bohn served a CEO of Moody’s Investors Service, and earlier in the 80s, he was a special assistant to U.S. Treasury Secretary Donald Regan in the first four-year term of Ronald Reagan’s administration, later serving as U.S. Ambassador and executive director of the Asian Development Bank.

A lawyer with a Stanford University undergraduate degree, Bohn practiced law in California and internationally, before serving as an international banker at Wells Fargo Bank in California for 14 years (1967-81).

“In telecommunications, technology is fast outstripping the old regulatory structure,” Schwarzenegger said. “More than ever, the CPUC needs people like John, who understand the power of technology to reduce prices and improve services, and I am confident he will be an invaluable addition to the commission.”

©Copyright 2005Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.