Governor Stein Announces Utilities Commission Appointment

Today Governor Stein appointed John W. Gajda, P.E., to serve on the North Carolina Utilities Commission.

“John Gajda brings decades of experience across every corner of North Carolina’s electric utility sector,” said Governor Josh Stein. “He understands the technical, regulatory, and operational sides of this work, and he has earned the respect of stakeholders across the industry. I’m confident John will serve on the Utilities Commission with integrity, steady judgment, and a focus on delivering reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy for the people of North Carolina.”

Gajda is joining the Utilities Commission with 36 years of utility experience in transmission and distribution planning and generator interconnections, in addition to regulatory, energy policy, and engineering design experience. He currently works as a Professor of Practice at North Carolina State University, serving as an instructor in power systems engineering courses within the Master of Science in Electric Power Systems Engineering program. Before joining academia, Gajda led transmission planning efforts for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office.

John has served in North Carolina’s energy industry since 1992, having worked on staff for the North Carolina Utilities Commission and Public Staff, for North Carolina’s electric cooperatives, for Duke Energy, for Strata Clean Energy, and in a consulting role for Electrical Engineering Consulting & Testing, PC. He helped to design many of the renewable energy generation interconnections in North Carolina from 2005 to 2019.