Pepco Holdings, Inc. Chairman, President and CEO Joseph M. Rigby has announced the formation of two independent blue ribbon panels to examine Pepco reliability and restoration issues.

The purpose of the blue ribbon panels will be to allow Pepco customers – residential, commercial and governmental – in Prince George’s County and the District to give direct feedback about service reliability. At the end of the process, the panels will provide recommendations from the community to the company.

The blue ribbon panels will comprise a diverse cross-section of community, government and business leaders in the two jurisdictions. . Their mission will be to gather input on issues related to reliability and restoration activities, including coordination with government entities, restoration times, outage maps and customer communications.

Each panel will hold a series of town hall meetings in its respective jurisdiction, then will meet with leaders from the Montgomery County Pepco Reliability Work Group to develop written recommendations. The panels’ work is slated to be completed by July 2011.

“The work of the Prince George’s and District panels will complement the ongoing work of Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett’s Pepco Reliability Work Group,” Rigby said. “Through this type of collaborative work, Pepco will gain broad insight into the expectations and experiences of all our customers who have lost power during major storm events, as well as on blue sky days. Their recommendations will drive the reliability improvements we are making.”

Former Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) Chairman and Venable attorney, Glenn Ivey, and former principal Deputy Corporation Counsel for the District of Columbia, now D.C. Office of the Attorney General, Claude E. Bailey, also a Venable attorney, will lead the blue ribbon panels in Prince George’s County and the District, respectively.

In addition to chairing the Maryland PSC, in his 25 years of legal experience, Ivey also served as Prince George’s County State’s attorney for eight years. He is President of the Harvard Law School Association’s Washington, D.C. Chapter. Bailey held a number of legal positions in the District government, including principal legal advisor on three of the most high-profile public projects in the D.C. area in the past decade: construction of the Washington Nationals Baseball Stadium, and construction and operation of the Washington Convention Center and the Verizon Center.

“We are committed to making improvements,” Rigby stated. “Mr. Ivey and Mr. Bailey will bring experience and transparency to this initiative as they seek input from our customers on what improvements they want to see.”