The West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative’s Launch Committee is finalizing role specifications for the initial board members of the Regional Organization for Western Energy (ROWE) as it prepares to evaluate candidates.

Lyceum Leadership Consulting, the search firm in charge of vetting candidates for ROWE’s board, has interviewed stakeholders to gather input on the role specifications for the initial five board positions that will be seated in 2026, Kathleen Staks, Launch Committee co-chair and ROWE interim president, said during a Pathways meeting March 27.

After the Pathways Initiative’s nine sectors provide input on the role specifications and search strategy in April, “we will kick off our board member search,” Staks said.

“This is the point at which we will be taking nominations, and the search firm will be starting their evaluation of various candidates and working through the nominating committee to evaluate those candidates and narrow it down to a slate of five,” Staks added.

Jim Shetler, general manager of the Balancing Authority of Northern California, provided an update on ROWE funding.

Shetler anticipates ROWE will raise roughly $1.1 million through stakeholder contributions and grants, “which should get us through mid- to third quarter of this year,” he said.

Shetler noted that CAISO has begun a stakeholder process to examine whether to approve an $8.5 million financing plan to fund ROWE’s start-up costs. He said ROWE and CAISO are discussing with “various banks” about what a loan structure might look like and are narrowing down alternatives. (See ‘Widespread Support’ for CAISO’s $8.5M ROWE Funding Plan.)

Meanwhile, the Pathways group working on developing ROWE’s Office of Public Participation has met with its counterpart at FERC to discuss best practices, Staks noted.

She added that the same work group has begun focusing on tribal engagement.

“We are doing some outreach and some work to figure out how the ROWE can get set up with a meaningful way for engaging with tribes and the various interests that they have as well,” Staks said.

The next Pathways meeting is scheduled for April 24.