Director
Kevin Wisely is Director of the Office of Resilience and Emergency Preparedness at the New York Public Service Commission.
The New York Public Service Commission and New York Department of Public Service oversee a mandate in New York's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, to cut greenhouse gas emissions forty percent by 2030 and no less than eighty-five percent by 2050 from 1990 levels. All that, while carrying on its regulatory business in the public interest. The five hundred-plus dedicated Staff of the New York Department of Public Service are up to all these tasks. They are the Staff arm of the seven-member New York Public Service Commission.
PUF's Lori Burkhart: How did your background lead to your position here?
Kevin Wisely: I've been here for the last four years, but my career in the industry began shortly out of college. I worked twenty-one years in the utility industry for Niagara Mohawk and National Grid.
I started my career at Nine Mile Point Nuclear Plant. I was a nuclear firefighter, and that was my union title, my first job. I was in occupational safety, corporate safety. I was in gas operations, electric operations. I formulated their emergency dispatch center and ran that for about ten years. I was in network operations and control centers and coordinated training for the control room operators in distribution and transmission rooms as we moved forward.