North Carolina

Utilities Commission

Commissioners

Karen M. Kemerait - Chair

Chair Kemerait was appointed to the North Carolina Utilities Commission by Governor Roy Cooper for a term that commenced on May 2, 2022, and ends on June 30, 2027. Chair Kemerait was elected as Chair of the Commission and began serving as Chair on January 28, 2025.

Born and raised in Indialantic, Florida, Chair Kemerait came to North Carolina to attend Davidson College, where she was captain of the cross country and track teams and was student government class president. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Davidson College and a Juris Doctor degree from Wake Forest University School of Law. After graduating from law school, she served as a law clerk for Judge Elizabeth McCrodden of the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

Prior to joining the Commission, Chair Kemerait was in private practice where she focused on her practice on energy and water and wastewater regulatory matters and land use matters.

Chair Kemerait is a member of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and serves on NARUC’s Critical Infrastructure Committee, Water Committee, and International Committee. She is an active member of the American Water Works Association and the NARUC-NASEO Comprehensive Electricity Planning Initiative. Additionally, she is a member of the Southeastern Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.

Chair Kemerait is a former Chair of the City of Raleigh Board of Adjustment and a member of the North Carolina Bar Association. She is active in a variety of civic and community organizations.

Chair Kemerait lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, and she has three sons.

Jeffrey A. Hughes

Commissioner Jeffrey A. Hughes was appointed to the Utilities Commission by Governor Cooper for a term commencing July 1, 2019 and expiring June 30, 2025. Commissioner Hughes joins the Commission after having been with the UNC School of Government since 2002. He has more than 25 years of experience assisting communities in addressing finance and policy challenges related to the provision of environmental services and programs.

Hughes is the author of numerous reports, guides, and articles on environmental finance and environmental policy analysis subjects. He has worked with a range of state and national organizations that focus on utility and environmental issues. He is an active member of Council of Infrastructure Finance Authorities (CIFA) and the American Water Works Association (AWWA). Hughes was the director of the Environmental Finance Center at the School of Government.

His research and teaching interests include service pricing, economic regulation, and public finance. He was named Albert and Gladys Hall Coates Distinguished Term Lecturer for 2012 - 2014. Prior to joining the university, Hughes worked as a finance specialist for RTI International where he managed utility finance and governance projects throughout Central Europe and Africa including a yearlong position as an infrastructure finance advisor to the Polish government. Hughes also worked briefly as a utility director for a small rural community in North Carolina. He earned a master’s degree in environmental engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Duke University.

Floyd B. McKissick Jr.

Commissioner McKissick was nominated to serve on the North Carolina Utilities Commission by Governor Roy Cooper for a six-year term commencing July 1, 2019, and expiring June 30, 2029. His nomination was confirmed by the NC Senate and the NC House. Prior to his appointment to the NCUC, he served as a member of the North Carolina Senate for approximately 13 years, where he served as the Senior Deputy Democratic Leader.

Commissioner McKissick is the son of the late civil rights leader and attorney, Floyd B. McKissick, Sr.

He received an A.B. Degree in Geography from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts; a master’s degree in Regional Planning (MRP) from UNC-Chapel Hill, a master’s degree in Public Administration (MPA) from Harvard University, and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) Degree from the Duke University School of Law in Durham, North Carolina.

He has practiced law since 1984 with several law firms, including Dickstein Shapiro & Morin in Washington, D.C., as well as Faison, Brown, Fletcher & Brough in Durham, North Carolina. He established a practice known as McKissick & McKissick in 1990, where he specialized in Civil Litigation. He has represented Fortune 500 corporations, as well as small businesses and many individuals during the course of his career.

He is a member of the following committees through the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC): Consumers and the Public Interest, Electricity, Critical Infrastructure, International Relations and Energy Resources and the Environment. He serves as Chair of NARUC’s Consumers & The Public Interest Committee. He is also Co-Chair of NARUC’s-NASEO’s Advanced Nuclear State Collaborative. He previously served as President of the Southeastern Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (SEARUC) which is composed of Commissioners from 11 Southeastern States and Puerto Rico. Commissioner McKissick has moderated panels at conferences sponsored by NARUC, SEARUC, as well as the New Mexico State University Center for Public Utilities, where he is a member of their Advisory Council.

William M. Brawley

William M. Brawley, Jr. was nominated to serve on the North Carolina Utilities Commission by the Speaker of the House for a six-year term commencing on ratification and expiring June 30, 2029. His nomination was confirmed by the NC Senate and the NC House.

At the time of his appointment, Commissioner Brawley was serving as a Public Member of the North Carolina Medical Board. Commissioner Brawley served eight years as a member of the North Carolina House filling several policy leadership posts including four years as a Senior Chair of Finance and a Transportation Chair. Commissioner Brawley was primary sponsor for the Strategic Transportation Investments Law which reduced the impact of politics in prioritizing major road projects by using a data driven method of maximizing benefits to the citizens of NC. He was also active in addressing Human Trafficking in NC.

Commissioner Brawley is an accounting graduate of UNC Charlotte. He began his career doing NC Rate Filings with a natural gas utility. After using mainframe computers to automate parts of the process, Commissioner Brawley began a career in technology with a computer time sharing firm, two manufacturers, and later two local telephone operating companies bringing internet connectivity and wide area network services into the Unifour area of NC. In 2004, Mr. Brawley made a career transition into commercial real estate specializing in infill assembly and lots for builders.

Commissioner Brawley is a native of North Carolina. Three of his four adult children live in NC, one resides abroad with her husband.

Tommy Tucker

Senator Tucker began serving on the North Carolina Utilities Commission in December 2023.

Before that Tommy Tucker represented NC Senate District 35 (Union County) in the North Carolina Senate from 2011-2019. During that time, he focused on serving those with intellectual and developmental disabilities as a Co-Chair of the Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee and Co-Chair of the Health Care Committee. Additionally, he served as a Gubernatorial appointee to the North Carolina Developmental Disabilities Council and the North Carolina South Carolina Boundary Commission.

Prior to his NC Senate service, Senator Tucker served as Weddington City Council’s Mayor Pro-Tem from 1994-1996 and as a Union County Commissioner from 1996-2000. He served as a founding Board Member of American Bank, a local community bank located in Monroe, NC. He and his wife Diane have two children and six grandchildren. Tommy Tucker was born and raised in Pitt County, North Carolina and proudly calls Union County home.

Senator Tucker recently served on the NC Rules Review Commission from 2020-2021 and the NC Board of Elections from 2021-2023.

He counts his service in the United States Navy and time at NC State University as his proudest educational moments.

Steven J. Levitas

Commissioner Steven J. Levitas was appointed by Governor Josh Stein for a term that commenced January 28, 2025 and ends on June 30, 2025.

Commissioner Levitas is a solar industry veteran and nationally respected authority on energy policy. His areas of expertise include competitive procurement program design, voluntary customer programs, PURPA implementation, integrated resource planning, and transmission and interconnection policies and procedures. He previously served in senior leadership roles with several solar development companies and prior to his involvement in the renewable energy sector spent more than 25 years working in the field of environmental law and policy, including serving as the Deputy Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Health and Natural Resources. Commissioner Levitas has served on the boards of numerous non-profit organizations and in 2023 received the North Carolina Sustainable Energy’s Association Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard Law School.

Appointed Commissioners - Past & Present