Norman named to public seat on AOGCC

Petroleum News

Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski has named Anchorage attorney John Norman to the public seat on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

The commission had gotten down to a single member, Dan Seamount, who holds the geologist seat.

Former Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin resigned from the public seat effective Jan. 20. Randy Ruedrich, chair of the Alaska Republican Party, resigned from the petroleum engineer seat in November in the midst of a controversy over potential conflicts of interest.

Norman also replaces Palin as chair of the commission.

When the governor announced Norman’s appointment at a press conference Jan. 23, he said he had asked Norman, “among his other duties, to review some of the recommended efficiencies in the operation” of the commission proposed by Palin and Seamount under the administration’s missions and measures evaluation.

Norman holds law and geology degrees from the University of Missouri.

Since 1971 he has been with the law firm of Hartig Rhodes Hoge & Lekisch, where he was a founding partner and shareholder. He was an assistant attorney general with the state of Alaska’s natural resources section from 1969-72, and an exploration representative for Skelly Oil in Alaska and Texas from 1967-68.

Norman was admitted to the bar in Missouri in 1964, in Alaska in 1969 and at the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972.