Chairman of FPC

With a long career of public service behind him, Nelson Lee Smith '21 was named Chairman of the Federal Power Commission to succeed Leland Olds who resigned effective January 1, 1947. A member of the Commission since 1943, Smith had previously served for eight years as a member and Chairman of the New Hampshire Public Service Commission.

In 1939 he was President of the National Association of Railroad and Utilities Commissioners and he went to Washington in 1941 as Chairman of the Board of Investigation and Research, a temporary agency established under the Transportation Act of 1940, which post he left to become a member of the Federal Power Commission.

A graduate of Tuck School in 1922, Smith was an instructor of economics at Dartmouth from 1921-24, an instructor at the University of Michigan from 1922-24 (while on leave of absence), assistant professor of economics at Dartmouth from 1924-34, being promoted to full professor in 1934 and serving on leave of absence until 1937. addition to his A.B. and M.C.S. degrees from Dartmouth and Tuck, he holds a Ph.D. from Michigan in 1928.