Walker appoints French to AOGCC

Gov. Bill Walker has appointed Hollis French to the public seat on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Hollis, a former state senator from Anchorage, worked in the oil and gas industry before earning his law degree.

In making the appointment the governor said, “AOGCC plays an integral role in the state’s natural resource development efforts, and Hollis’ experience in Alaska’s oil industry will make him a valuable addition to the commission.”

The governor’s office said that after moving to Alaska in 1978, French went to work on Shell Platform A, five miles offshore in Cook Inlet, and starting in 1979 was with Shell on the North Slope where he worked his way up to a production operator. French began work for ARCO as a production operator in 1984 and was promoted to lead operator.

The governor’s office said French brings 13 years of hands-on oil field experience to his new job at the commission.

French left the oil industry in 1992 to attend law school and received his juris doctor from Cornell Law School in 1995. He returned to Alaska and worked as a prosecutor in the Anchorage District Attorney’s Office for six years.

In 2002 French was elected to the Alaska Senate where he served for 12 years and was a member of the Senate Bipartisan Working Group and chair of the Judiciary Committee. The governor’s office said that during that time French played an active role in oil and gas development legislation, criminal justice reform and health care reform. His first day at AOGCC is July 25. His appointment to the commission will be subject to legislative confirmation.

The commission is an independent quasi-judicial agency housed in the Alaska Department of Administration. It has three members - a petroleum engineer, a petroleum geologist and a public member, a seat which requires, under Alaska statute, “training or experience that gives the person a fundamental understanding of the oil and gas industry in the state.” Members serve six-year terms. French is filling an existing six-year term which began the first of March 2015 and expires at the end of February 2021.

The commission has been without a third member for more than a year since the Legislature failed to confirm Walker’s appointment of Mike Gallagher to the public seat.

- KRISTEN NELSON