Rick Weston joined RAP after 11 years with the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB), the state’s utility regulatory commission. At the PSB, he served as an economist and hearing officer, overseeing a docket of some 15 cases a year involving, among other things, the design and implementation of energy efficiency strategies and least-cost plans, power purchases, rate levels and rate design, competition in local telecommunications service, and the creation of Efficiency Vermont, the nation’s first “energy efficiency utility.”
Mr. Weston also assisted the PSB on the major electric and telecommunications cases that it heard directly. From 1994 to 1997, he was co-chair of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners' staff subcommittee to the Committee on Energy Conservation. He also served as co-chair of NARUC's Staff Subcommittee on Electric Industry Restructuring.
During his first decade with RAP, Mr. Weston divided his time between the China and US programs, focusing in both countries on matters relating to energy efficiency, renewables, regulatory reform and pricing, regional market operations and emissions regulation. More recently, he has begun work under the International Energy Agency's DSM Programme. In 2011, Mr. Weston took over the reins of the China Program, to which he is now devoting his effort full-time.
Previously, Mr. Weston worked as an energy and economic consultant for clients in the US and Middle East, including employment with the American International Group in Saudi Arabia from 1981 to 1984.
Mr. Weston received his MA in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and his BA in English literature from Middlebury College. He also received advanced intensive training in Arabic from the American University in Cairo.
