The daughter of a farmworker, Genevieve A. Shiroma is in her second stretch as chair of the ALRB. The native of San Joaquin County received an associate of arts degree in math and science from San Joaquin Delta College in 1974 before earning a bachelor of science degree in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Davis in 1978.
Following college, Shiroma joined the California Air Resources Board as an air quality engineer. She worked there for 21 years, eventually becoming chief of the Air Quality Measures Branch. Governor Gray Davis appointed her chair of the ALRB in 1999. The registered Democrat also joined the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) board of directors that year, where she continues to serve. She was elected board president in 2002, 2006 and 2010.
Shiroma was riding in a bus in downtown Tokyo on March 12, 2011, when an 8.9 earthquake rocked Japan and crippled nuclear reactors in the country. The SMUD, where she serves, still has responsibility for the decommissioned Rancho Seco nuclear power plant in southern Sacramento. A 1978 power failure at Rancho Seco led to a steam generator dryout and problems plagued the plant all through the ‘80s. The plant was shut down in 1989 after a public vote. In 2005 the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission deemed the 1978 event the third most serious safety-related occurrence in the United States.
Shiroma relinquished her ALRB chair in 2005, but Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger reappointed her to the board in March 2006. She was appointed to the board again in February 2011 by Governor Jerry Brown and was designated as chair in July. Shiroma’s term expires January 1, 2016.
She is married to Michael Abbott.
Chairwoman Genevieve Shiroma (ALRB website)
Genevieve Shiroma (LinkedIn)
Far from Quake's Devastation, Loved Ones on Edge (by Will Kane, Mihir Zaveri and Sunao Miyauchi, San Francisco Chronicle)
SMUD Board Member Experiences Japan Quake, Analyzes Nuclear Risk (KXTV)
Finding Lessons in Rancho Seco (by Matt Weiser, Sacramento Bee)
Nuclear Renaissance Uncertain After Disaster (by Martin Cheek, The Gilroy Dispatch)
