Gov. Gavin Newsom named new members Tuesday to the three bodies that govern California energy policy — CAISO, the Public Utilities Commission and the Energy Commission — and reappointed a sitting member of the ISO’s Board of Governors.

Newsom appointed former NERC Trustee Jan Schori to fill a seat on the CAISO board left vacant when former Chair David Olsen decided to retire at the end of November.

In a rare move, the governor named an Energy Commission staff member, Deputy Director Siva Gunda, to the panel of five commissioners. Former Commissioner Janea Scott left in January to take a top post at the U.S. Department of the Interior under the Biden Administration.

Newsom selected the Energy Commission’s general counsel, Darcie Houck, to fill an open spot on the CPUC dais. In December he picked former Commissioner Liane Randolph to head the California Air Resources Board, leaving a vacancy.

And the governor reappointed Mary Leslie to a seat she has held on the CAISO board since 2019.

During Tuesday’s CEC meeting, commissioners welcomed their new colleague, Gunda, and wished Houck well in her next role. Chair David Hochschild noted that the CEC and CPUC must work together to predict energy use and procure resources. The additional connection between the two entities will be helpful, he said.

“The collaboration between the CPUC and the Energy Commission is so fundamental to our success, and so, knowing the strong bond the two of you have with each other is another reason we should all be excited,” he told Houck and Gunda.

Working with CAISO, the commissions are trying to head off energy shortfalls this summer and in the next few years, as the state transitions from fossil fuels to renewables. Last summer’s energy emergencies and rolling blackouts led to calls for better synchronization among the three entities. (See New CAISO CEO Vows Urgency on Resource Adequacy.)

“It’s just clear California will not succeed and will not have an effective resource adequacy framework if the ISO and the CPUC and the CEC do not have that shared sense of tremendous urgency and focus and collaboration,” CAISO CEO Elliot Mainzer said in an interview last year. “We have to work well together.”

Schori’s appointment followed her service as a NERC trustee for 12 years, the maximum allowed. She was termed out earlier this year.

From 1984 to 2008, Schori worked for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, one of the nation’s largest municipal utilities, including as its CEO and general manager, general counsel and staff attorney. She graduated from the University of California Davis School of Law.

Leslie, whom Newsom named to the CAISO board two years ago, was the longtime president of the Los Angeles Business Council, a one-time deputy mayor of Los Angeles and a former commissioner at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Houck, another UC Davis graduate, has been chief counsel at the CEC since 2019. She was an administrative law judge at the CPUC from 2016 to 2019 and staff counsel at the CEC from 2000 to 2005. She worked in a private law firm between her stints of government service.

Gunda served as deputy director of the Energy Assessments Division at the CEC since 2018 and was office manager of the commission’s Demand Analysis Office in 2017-2018. He previously worked at the UC Davis Energy and Efficiency Institute, including as director of research for two years and as a program manager for four years prior. Gunda holds a master’s degree in mechanical and aeronautical engineering from Utah State University.

After he was sworn in Tuesday morning, Gunda — who, commissioners said, is known for giving credit to others — thanked his fellow staff members at the CEC for their “collective success” and hard work pursuing the state’s clean energy goals and helping determine the causes of last year’s rolling blackouts. (See CAISO Issues Final Report on August Blackouts.) Their joint efforts culminated in his appointment, he said.

“The staff at the Energy Commission are one of the most passionate, committed and intellectually honest group of people that I’ve ever met,” Gunda said after he was sworn in Tuesday morning. “It’s been an absolute honor and pleasure.”