Pat Wood III is the past Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and of the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT). The son of a small businessman, Pat has been a forceful advocate throughout his career for robust infrastructure and for customer-centered, technology-unleashing competition.

Today, as CEO of the Hunt Energy Network, Pat and his team are shaping the dependable, decarbonized, democratized, decentralized, diverse and digitalized future of the power grid.  By the end of 2028, the team expects to have a 1000 MW portfolio of distributed batteries and peaking generation assets attached to the Texas power grid.

Pat has served as a director of a number of public energy companies: independent power producer Dynegy (Board chairman); solar pioneer SunPower (lead independent director), modular nuclear generation (NuScale) sponsor Spring Valley Acquisition Corp., natural gas producer Memorial Resource Development, and infrastructure contractor Quanta Services.  Pat is chairman of the board of Luma Energy, overseeing the Quanta-ATCO joint venture to rebuild and operate the Puerto Rico utility system.

In 1995, Governor George W. Bush named Pat to head the PUCT with a mandate to inject competition into the state’s regulated utilities. The resulting restructured Texas electric market has improved customer service and cost, yielded innovative technology and service offerings, and attracted high infrastructure investment, including the nation’s largest transmission project (the 2008-2013 CREZ buildout) and the nation’s most significant wind/solar/storage buildout. 

During his four years at the helm of the FERC, under President George W. Bush, Pat led the responses to the 2000-2001 California energy crisis, the bankruptcy of Enron, and the 2003 North American power blackout. By the end of his term, over two-thirds of the nation was served by the reliable, organized wholesale power markets FERC championed.  

Pat holds a B.S. degree (civil engineering) from Texas A&M University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He, and his wife, Kathleen, are raising four sons, and there is never a dull moment.