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Murkowski names Ernesta Ballard to head DEC, Bill Corbus at Revenue Governor says Ballard can foster cooperation between DEC and EPA, Corbus can help bring participation in infrastructure development from outside investors Petroleum News Alaska
Gov. Frank Murkowski has named Ernesta Ballard as commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation and Bill Corbus as commissioner of the Department of Revenue.
In an announcement Dec. 9, the governor also named Joel Gilbertson as commissioner of the Department of Health and Social Services, Marc Antrim as commissioner of the Department of Corrections and Greg O’Claray as the commissioner of the Department of Labor.
Murkowski said in a statement that he expects to continue the process of selecting qualified candidates for the remaining cabinet posts over the coming weeks.
“Together with the earlier appointment of Gregg Renkes at the department of law, we now have nearly half of the cabinet in place,” Murkowski said. “I am looking forward to completing this process as soon as we can.”
Ballard at DEC Ballard has served as budget director at the University of Washington and senior vice president for retail banking at Seattle Trust and Savings Bank. She was regional administrator of Region 10 of the United States Environmental Protection Agency from 1983-86 and moved to Alaska in 1989 to become chief executive officer of the Cape Fox Corp. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, attended Oxford University on a Thouron Scholarship, and received a master’s in business administration from Harvard University.
She has been an environmental consultant since leaving Cape Fox.
“For DEC, we were looking for an environmental professional, who is committed to doing it right,” Murkowski said. “Ernesta brings a strong background in implementing environmental policy at EPA Region 10, where she gained the respect of her colleagues. She is thus uniquely positioned to foster a new cooperation between the state and EPA, and to remove the unnecessary roadblocks between the agencies,” he said.
Corbus at Revenue Corbus is the retired president of Alaska Electric Light and Power, the electric company that serves the Juneau area, where he has lived since 1970. Corbus holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Stanford University and a master’s of business administration from the Amos Tuck Graduate School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College. He served as a Lt. J.G. in the U.S. Naval Reserve. From 1965-69, Corbus worked for Stone & Webster in New York City providing public utility security analysis, financial planning, and accounting.
In 1970, he joined Alaska Electric Light and Power as assistant manager, becoming general manager in 1978 and president in 1988.
“Bill Corbus has a solid, stable background in the management of financial resources, which, in these difficult times on Wall Street, will be good protection for Alaska’s assets,” Murkowski said. “At the department of revenue, we need a person who, in addition to managing the department well, will be able to husband our financial resources in the turbulent investment atmosphere back East. We have to protect our bond rating. Plus, I think it’s about time that those outside Alaska, who have benefited over the years by managing and investing our financial resources, be called upon to bring some of it back to Alaska. I think this can be done in the form of participation in infrastructure development, and I think Bill Corbus is just the man to make it happen.”
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