Petroleum engineer Jessie Chmielowski has been appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission by Gov. Michael Dunleavy.
She is a professionally licensed engineer with 19 years of experience in Alaska and a long list of regulatory oversight work in her background.
Chmielowski replaced Cathy Foerster, who retired this month. Foerster’s was a planned retirement after 14 years on the commission; she originally planned to retire in February but stayed on extra weeks at the request of the governor, who is in the process of replacing another former AOGCC commissioner, Hollis French.
Most recently, Chmielowski was the senior petroleum engineer for the Bureau of Land Management’s Alaska office, where she oversaw federal onshore oil and gas activities in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and the Kenai Peninsula.
The commission was created as a quasi-judicial agency by statute to ensure that the state’s oil and gas is not wasted. This is one of three paid seats on the commission and it’s assigned to a petroleum engineer. The others are assigned to a geologist and a member of the public.
The public seat is vacant since Dunleavy released French for cause: He wasn’t showing up at work on a regular basis.
Commissioner Chmielowski has a degree in chemical engineering from Rice University. She is plenty smart. A good appointment.
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