2023 Outstanding Public Service Award

Published Date September 10, 2023

News Type Public Address

Bruce Weston, Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, speaks at the Glenn College pre-commencement ceremony after accepting his award.

By Kendhyl Wilder

This year’s John Glenn Outstanding Public Service Award honors Bruce Weston of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel and his commitment to amplifying Ohio citizens’ voices in government processes.

Weston has served Ohioans as the Consumers’ Counsel agency director since March 2012. Previously, he served as the deputy consumers’ counsel and directed the agency’s legal department. His career spans more than 40 years in public utility law, experience he draws upon in his service to the agency and to Ohio residential consumers.

The John Glenn Outstanding Public Service Award recognizes career contributions to public service and is presented annually to individuals who have distinguished themselves through service to the state of Ohio, their community or a philanthropic mission. Glenn College Dean Trevor Brown presented the award to Weston at the college’s spring pre-commencement ceremony.

Weston has been committed to giving Ohioans a voice in their government’s regulatory and legislative processes for the regulation of essential utility services and has championed affordable rates and reliable utility services for millions of Ohio consumers. His priorities have included reforming the process for selection of PUCO commissioners to increase sensitivity to consumer issues and for more transparency; repealing or improving the ratemaking in Ohio’s 2008 energy law that favors electric utilities over consumers; enabling competitive markets instead of monopolies for providing lower prices and greater innovation for consumers where competition can be effective; and protecting consumers from a smaller segment of energy marketers that have deceived them and/or charged them unconscionable rates.

Read the latest edition of Public Address, the Glenn College magazine.