Palo Alto, CA -- Palo Alto’s new Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC) commissioners were appointed at Monday’s City Council meeting where new commissioner Dr. Elizabeth Dahlen was selected to join incumbents Dexter Dawes and Dick Rosenbaum on the respected five-person advisory panel. The UAC analyzes issues affecting the City’s full-service municipal utility, locally known as The City of Palo Alto Utilities, and advises the City Council on frequently complex utility policy decisions. For more information about the UAC see http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/clerk/uac.html

The new and returning commissioners will participate in their first commission meeting on August 6th and will serve a term of three years. While all candidates for the volunteer position of commissioner were extremely qualified, the three selected offered a unique and compelling combination of experience, expertise, and utility specialization.

Biographies for the new commissioners:

Dexter Dawes

Dawes, a former Managing General Partner for John Hancock Capital Growth Funds, brings his years of corporate governance experience to the UAC. A self-proclaimed "pragmatic problem solver", Dawes possesses substantial experience in long-range planning, goal setting, detailed budgeting, capital budgeting and return analysis, and structuring capital transactions. His addition to the UAC in 2000 gave him the opportunity to help influence and guide the City of Palo Alto Utilities in serving the needs of Palo Alto residents in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Additionally, Dawes' goals in serving the Palo Alto community on the UAC include maintaining the fiscal soundness of the utility, supporting the utility's budget to continue its transfers to the City's general fund, and preserving the utility system for future Palo Altans through regular system maintenance. Dawes, currently retired from corporate life, received his undergraduate degree and MBA from Harvard University.

Dick Rosenbaum

Working to upgrade the Hetch Hetchy water system, determining the city's role in telecommunications, and monitoring the performance of the City's utility in an unregulated industry are the three goals Dick Rosenbaum hoped he could work towards as a UAC member when he was appointed in 2000. Rosenbaum, a former City Council member (1971-1975; 1992-1999), brings enormous experience in the Palo Alto community to his position on the UAC. In addition, his 30 years of experience as an engineer at Lockheed's Research Lab gave Rosenbaum the technical knowledge and background to make knowledgeable utility decisions for utility customers. Rosenbaum hopes his role as a sounding board for staff proposals will help add value to the final recommendations staff makes to the City Council on complex utility issues.

Dr. Elizabeth Dahlen

Dr. Dahlen is a Palo Alto resident and a Managing Engineer in the Civil Engineering practice of Exponent, a company based in Menlo Park. She specializes in utility transport of natural gas and water, and in wastewater treatment. Her primary professional focus is on evaluating the biochemical environment within liquid and gas pipelines. Dr. Dahlen was a consulting professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at San Francisco State University and worked as a consulting environmental engineer at Montgomery Watson and at the General Motors Research Laboratories in Warren, Michigan. Dr. Dahlen is fluent in German and has worked at GKW Ingenieure, an environmental engineering company in Germany, and at the Engler-Bunte-Institut of Chemical Engineering at Karlsruhe Universität.

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