SPP said Tuesday that it has hired Arkansas Public Service Commissioner Kimberly O’Guinn as its director of state regulatory policy. Beginning next year, she will be responsible for the grid operator’s state regulatory policy efforts and support its work on related RTO policy matters.

An environmental engineer with more than two decades of utility regulatory experience, O’Guinn was nominated to the PSC in 2016. She has presided over SPP’s Regional State Committee and is currently a member of the Organization of MISO States.

“I am very excited to be a part of the SPP team,” O’Guinn said in a press release. “My career has been dedicated to regulatory issues, which provided me an opportunity to work with SPP and its stakeholders during my tenure at the PSC.”

O’Guinn has also served in leadership roles with the Entergy Regional State Committee, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the Electric Power Research Institute’s Advisory Council, the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas, the American Association of Blacks in Energy, and Arkansas Women in Power. She holds a bachelor’s of in environmental engineering from the University of Oklahoma.

Paul Suskie, SPP’s general counsel and executive vice president of regulatory policy, said he is “thrilled” to welcome O’Guinn.

“As a former president of the [RSC], Kim is very familiar with SPP, and her experience as a nationally respected commissioner is a great asset to the organization,” he said.

O’Guinn previously served as the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality’s director of communications and as permit engineer at the department’s Office of Air.