For more information contact:
Dean Boyer, Director of Communications
(360) 741-2676, dboyer@wpuda.org

Jan. 7, 2008
Mason PUD No. 1 commissioner to head statewide energy committee

OLYMPIA – Mason County PUD No. 1 Commissioner Jack Janda has been elected chairman of a new Washington Public Utility Districts Association committee to develop statewide policy on critical energy issues.
The Washington PUD Association represents 27 PUDs that provide electricity, water and sewer services, and broadband telecommunications to more than 1.6 million customers across the state.

The newly created Energy Committee will develop and recommend policy positions to the board of directors on issues affecting electric generation and transmission, including energy efficiency standards, climate change, renewable energy resources, and their impact on environment.

Eleven members of the committee, including PUD commissioners and general managers, were appointed in November by then-WPUDA President Gregg Caudell, a Ferry County PUD commissioner. In December, the committee elected Janda, a past president of the association, to serve as chairman.

Janda said the new Energy Committee will play a critical role in developing the association’s position on emerging issues.

“We’ve already seen significant regulatory and legislative efforts affecting the way we provide services to our ratepayers in just the past few months,” Janda said, “and when you look at the attention these issues are continuing to get from our state Legislature in Olympia and from Congress, it’s clear that more changes are coming.

“The Washington PUD Association’s new Energy Committee will bring together the expertise necessary to carefully analyze how these legislative initiatives are likely to impact our ratepayers and then recommend policy positions that ensure our ability as locally regulated, nonprofit utilities to continue meeting the needs of our communities.”

Janda, who represents Mason PUD No. 1 on the WPUDA Boards of Directors, retired from the U.S. Forest Service in 2000. He has also been a volunteer with the Mason County Fire District No. 1 in Hoodsport for 30 years, serving a fire chief from 1994 until 2004.

He was elected PUD commissioner in 2000 and reelected to a second six-year term in 2006.
Mason PUD No. 1 provides electricity to more than 5,000 customers in the county. It also owns and operates 32 water systems serving nearly 1,700 customers.

Janda is also on the executive board of Energy Northwest, a joint operating agency of 20 public power utilities that operates hydroelectric, wind and solar energy installations in Washington, as well as Columbia Station, the only nuclear plant in the state.

He and his wife, Karen, live in Hoodsport.