Throughout his 20-year career with Southern California Edison, Tommy Ross has contributed to the success of the company’s Sacramento Public Affairs office.  Appointed Vice President of Public Affairs in 2007, he is responsible for the implementation of company advocacy directives and provides legislative strategy and policy development.  He directs the company’s in-house lobbyists and legislative analysis program, while also overseeing the activities of the company’s contract lobbying firms.

In addition, Ross has extensive experience under both Democratic and Republican Administrations.  Governor Wilson later appointed Ross as Commissioner of the California Commission on Improving Life Through Service.  He also served as Assistant Director of Recycling for the California State Department of Conservation where he managed a staff of 250 and a budget of $350 million, Assistant Consultant to the Senate Committee on Public Utilities, Transit & Energy, and was Staff Consultant to the Senate Office of Research.  During Governor Jerry Brown’s tenure, he worked in the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research as Chairman of the Century Freeway Economic Development Task Force and Legislative Representative at the State Department of Corrections.  Ross also serves as a member of the California Economic Strategies Panel, where he was appointed to by Governor Schwarzenegger in 2007.

Ross was a member of the Community Advisory Committee for the 2000 Olympic Track and Field Finals held in Sacramento, was a Senate Fellow in the California State Senate and has written extensively on various social and political issues as a featured columnist in the Sacramento Observer newspaper.  Ross is the former Chairman and founding member of the California African American Political Action Committee (CAAPAC) and served as a member of the Board of Directors of Walden House, a San Francisco-based drug rehabilitation organization. He is also a Lincoln Fellow at The Claremont Institute, and, most recently, founded and is the current Chairman and President of The Research and Policy Institute of California, which conducts research projects in various policy areas focusing on African Americans, and also manages statewide college preparatory and leadership programs in the state.

A native of Southern California, Ross was raised the seventh of nine children (4 brothers and 4 sisters) in Compton, California.  A graduate of Compton High School, Ross received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Claremont Men’s College.