Meet the Commissioners
Chairman, Kentucky Public Service Commission
Michael J. Schmitt was appointed and designated as chairman of the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) by Governor Matthew Bevin on June 21, 2016, and reappointed on June 19, 2019. His term expires June 30, 2023.
Prior to joining the PSC, Chairman Schmitt was a partner in the law firm of Porter, Schmitt, Banks & Baldwin in Paintsville. He is a member of the Kentucky Bar Association, is admitted to practice before all federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, and has served as a special justice on the Kentucky Supreme Court. He represented a variety of clients, notably energy companies and local boards of education. He has also worked for the Kentucky League of Cities, the Kentucky Association of Counties and the Kentucky Department of Education.
Chairman Schmitt is a member of the National Association of Utility Regulatory Commissioners (NARUC) and serves on its Committee on Water and Subcommittee on Pipeline Safety. He is a member of the Southeastern Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and of the Mid-Atlantic Conference of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners.
Chairman Schmitt received a Juris Doctorate, with distinction, from the University of Kentucky College of Law, where he was a member of the Order of the Coif and the Kentucky Law Journal. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and has been recognized for his legal expertise numerous times, including receiving the Kentucky Farm Bureau Distinguished Counsel Award (2007) and the Kentucky Defense Attorney of the Year (2015). Chairman Schmitt has served on the boards of the Kentucky Council of School Board Attorneys and the Kentucky Defense Counsel and has been a judge in the National Trial Court Competition.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of Kentucky.
Vice Chairman, Kentucky Public Service Commission
Kent A. Chandler was appointed to the Public Service Commission by Governor Andy Beshear on July 6, 2020. His term expires June 30, 2024.
Prior to his appointment, he served as Executive Director of the PSC. Previous to becoming Executive Director, he was an advisor to the commissioners, focusing on federal issues surrounding the wholesale gas and electricity markets, including FERC-regulated regional electric transmission operators.
Before coming to the PSC, Commissioner Chandler advocated for Kentucky ratepayers as an attorney in the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office of Rate Intervention. During his four years at the Kentucky Office of Attorney General, he appeared before state, federal and local boards and courts. In that position he regularly represented consumers before the PSC in electric, gas, water and sewer utility cases. While at the Attorney General’s Office, he also served on the executive committee of the Consumer Advocates of the PJM States, which includes other utility consumer advocates from jurisdictions in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions.
Commissioner Chandler, a native of Providence, Kentucky, earned a Bachelor of Science in finance from Murray State University. He received a Juris Doctor from Northern Kentucky University’s Salmon P. Chase College of Law. He and his wife Kimberly reside in Georgetown.
Commissioner, Kentucky Public Service Commission
Talina R. Mathews, Ph.D., was appointed to a four-year term in July 2017. Immediately prior to her appointment as commissioner, Dr. Mathews was the executive director of the PSC. Her two decades’ long service to the Commonwealth has included positions as policy advisor and a staff economist at the PSC. Commissioner Mathews also has served as executive director and economist in the Office of Energy Policy. Commissioner Mathews is a member of the National Association of Utility Regulatory Commissioners (NARUC) and serves on its board of directors, as co-vice chair of the Committee on Electricity, and as a member of the Committee on Critical Infrastructure and the Subcommittee on Clean Coal and Carbon Management. She is immediate past president of the Southeastern Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and of the Organization of PJM States, a member of the Board of Directors of the Organization of MISO States, and a member of the Mid-Atlantic Conference of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners. Commissioner Mathews serves on the advisory councils of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Center for Public Utilities at New Mexico State University, and is a member of the advisory board of the Financial Research Institute (FRI) at the University of Missouri.
Commissioner Mathews earned a PhD and a Master’s in economics from the University of Kentucky. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics from Berea College.