Joseph Kessler

Joseph F. Kessler, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, oversees NYPA’s power generation and transmission assets, commercial operations and the New York State Canal Corporation’s operations.

Before assuming this role in 2016, Joe was Senior Vice President of Power Generation, responsible for oversight of NYPA’s generating facilities across New York State. After starting his career at an electrical construction firm, Joe worked at an architectural engineering company before joining NYPA in 2001 as an engineer in the Electrical Maintenance department.

In 2019, under Joe’s leadership, NYPA became the first electric utility in North America to receive international certification for power generation and transmission asset management standards set forth by the International Organization for Standardization. The certification, known as ISO55001, was renewed in 2022.

Joe was the first chairman of NYPA’s Asset Management Board and is a member of NYPA’s Enterprise Risk Management Committee. He also serves as executive sponsor of NYPA’s Multicultural Employee Resource Group.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, a master’s degree in electrical engineering (energy systems), and an MBA from SUNY at Buffalo, and is a licensed Professional Engineer in New York and Maryland.

Joe is a board member of the Hydropower Research Institute and Co-Chairman of the National Hydropower Association’s CEO Council and sits on the boards of the Northland Workforce Development Center and Invest Buffalo Niagara. He has served on the Electric Power Research Institute’s Generation Sector and Research Advisory Councils and is on the Low-Carbon Resources Initiative Board Working Group and the Large Public Power Council’s Operational Executive Working Group.

He is a member of SUNY at Buffalo’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Dean’s Advisory Council, and the Conference Board’s Chief Operating Officers Council.

Joe is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and a member of the Erie-Niagara Chapter of the New York State Society of Professional Engineers, the International Association of Electrical Inspectors and the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America.

A lifelong Western New Yorker, Joe and his wife Lisa live in West Seneca and have three children.