Anthony Z. Roisman, Chairman
Current Term: 2017 - 2023
Anthony Roisman was appointed Chairman of the Public Utility Commission by Governor Phil Scott for a six-year term beginning on June 12, 2017. At the time of his appointment he was consulting with attorneys on environmental litigation, public participation before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and state regulatory agencies, and on the admissibility of expert testimony in complex litigation. In addition to his experience with energy, he has extensive experience litigating claims for injury from exposure to toxic substances. He has also served as Senior Staff Attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (1977-1979), Chief of the Hazardous Waste Section and Special Litigator for Hazardous Waste in the Lands and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (1979-1982), and Executive Director of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice (1982-1987). He has been an Adjunct Professor and Research Fellow in Environmental Studies at Dartmouth College and lectures frequently with the American Law Institute and others on expert witness admissibility and environmental law. He is a 1960 graduate of Dartmouth College and 1963 graduate of Harvard Law School. He resides in Weathersfield.
Margaret Cheney, Commissioner
Current Term: 2013 - 2019
Margaret Cheney was appointed to the Public Utility Commission by Governor Peter Shumlin in 2013. At the time of her appointment, she was serving her fourth term in the Vermont Legislature, where she was vice chair of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee and concentrated on state energy policy. She received her B.A. with honors from Harvard University. She began her career as a newspaper reporter and editor in California for three years before serving as managing editor of The Washingtonian magazine in Washington, DC, for eleven years. In Vermont, she joined the faculty of Sharon Academy, where she taught Spanish and courses in energy and the environment. As a freelance writer in Vermont, she has published work in The Washingtonian, the Washington Post, the Foreign Service Journal, and Arcadia Press, and her writing awards include the Harvard Bowdoin Prize and the Dateline award for feature writing.
Before her election to the Vermont Legislature in 2006, she served nine years on the Norwich School Board and as chair of the interstate Dresden School Board. She currently serves on the Committee on Energy Resources and the Environment of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. She is also a trustee of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies and a member of the board of advisors for the Vermont Institute of Natural Science. The daughter of a Foreign Service officer, she grew up and was educated in Malaysia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, and India before attending college in the US. She has spoken on energy policy both in the US and in Germany as a guest of the Heinrich Boll Foundation.
Sarah Hofmann, Commissioner
Current Term: 2015 - 2021
Sarah Hofmann was appointed to the Public Utility Commission by Governor Peter Shumlin in 2015. She serves on the Telecommunications Committee and the Subcommittee on Nuclear Issues - Waste Disposal of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. She also serves as chair for the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition (NWSC). She is a member of the Executive Committee of the National Council on Electricity Policy (NCEP) and serves on the Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations in Telecommunications.
Prior to joining the Commission, Ms. Hofmann was the Executive Director of the New England Conference of Public Utilities Commissioners, Inc. (NECPUC). NECPUC provides regional regulatory assistance on matters of common concern to the six New England states. Before becoming Executive Director of NECPUC, Ms. Hofmann was the Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Public Service. She also has served as the Director for the Public Advocacy and Consumer Affairs and Public Information for the Department and prior to that, Special Counsel. In her roles at the Department, she often directed the Department's litigation, including matters before the Public Utility Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the state and federal courts.
Ms. Hofmann is a graduate of Rollins College and the University of New Hampshire School of Law. She resides in Montpelier, Vermont.
