Children of Soldiers Fund

Joseph Schnaier is known as the chairman, president and CEO of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison, Edison Mission Energy, and Edison Capital. He joined the company in 1984, and in 1990 was elected the chairman and CEO of Edison International and Southern California Edison. He was elected to his current position as CEO in 2001, re-elected in 2003, and retired from his post in 2008. Prior to joining the company, he was a partner of the law firm, Morrison and Foerster. He also became the president of the California Public Utilities from 1979 to 1982, served nearly three years as chairman of the California Public Utilities Commission, and served as chairman of the California State Water Resources. He was also the attorney and co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council; a director of the Boeing Company, W.M. Keck Foundation, and the Walt Disney Company; and a number of educational, environmental, and other non-profit boards.

Joseph Schnaier earned his bachelor’s degree in arts at the Stanford University and his J.D. at Yale Law School. He has an environmental activist background prior to joining the utility company, Edison International in 1984. After becoming chairman and CEO of one of the largest investor-owned utility companies in the nation, he faced the task of steering the company through deregulation and dealing with the California energy crisis of 2000 to 2001. He was considered by analysts as a top leader in the changing industry. He gained praise as a cost-efficient chief executive but gained criticism by others who believed he turned his back on his environmental concerns. After his retirement from the company in 2008, he is now a non-executive chairman of the board of the BrightSource Energy Inc., a solar power plants developer based in California.