Originally born in the Seattle area, Steve Grega has spent the vast majority of his life living in Lewis County.
For a good chunk of that time — roughly 37 years — he has worked for the Lewis County Public Utility District (PUD). Now, nearly 10 years after retiring from the local utility and still closely following its decisions, he's ready to help lead it.
A longtime Lewis County PUD engineer who is now an active community member and a part-time tree farmer, Grega is throwing his hat into the ring for Lewis County PUD Commissioner for the second time in recent years.
He faces Jeff Baine in the Nov. 3 general election.
Grega sees himself as the most qualified candidate for the job, and perhaps the logical successor to Dave Muller, who he would replace and who he reported to for many years at the PUD.
“The PUD has some unique challenges coming up, and I think I was the best suited person for those unique challenges,” Grega said. “One is the power supply to the PUD, and the second one is the relicensing of Cowlitz Falls.”
For Grega, stable power supply and the future of the utility's only hydroelectric project, the Cowlitz Falls Dam, are the most important issues for the PUD in the coming years, and they are issues he believes he is uniquely qualified to handle.
On the power supply side, Grega is concerned with decisions facing the Bonneville Power Administration, such as which regional power group it may join in the coming years, and the impact of state mandates that dictate where power should come from and how it should be generated.
For example, Washington state law outlawed burning coal for power effective at the end of last year and has laws in place to outlaw burning natural gas for power effective in 2045.
All of these, he worries, could impact the PUD’s power supply and therefore its ability to keep costs low.
Concerning Cowlitz Falls Dam, Grega sees himself as the logical leader going into the coming relicensing process for the dam. Grega was originally hired at the utility to lead the construction and licensing of the hydroelectric project and, as such, believes he brings a valuable perspective to the effort to relicense the facility.
“I went through the original licensing of the dam,” Grega said. “It took about 10 years to go through it. Well, our license at Cowlitz Falls is up in about 10 years.”
For all of these issues. Grega feels it's not just his experience with the processes but also the relationships he built during his time at the utility that will help him lead the utility through these challenges.
“It's all negotiations, and I felt when I left, I had pretty good relations with most of our regulating agencies at the dam,” he said. “Since I've worked through these issues, I feel like I'm kind of uniquely qualified for those, you know, to revisit them.”
At a higher level, Grega comes into the campaign with four main goals as a candidate for PUD commissioner, and the first is a word that has become omnipresent in political campaigns around the country: affordability.
The Pacific Northwest has long been known for having some of the most affordable power rates in the country largely thanks to hydroelectric dams across the region managed by BPA. For Grega, affordable power remains the top priority.
During an interview with The Chronicle, Grega recalled a frugal and fiscally conservative attitude at the PUD when he worked there, and he would like to see that continue.
“I'm a big one for not spending,” Grega said. “Even though it's budgeted, if you don't need it, don't spend it. That's my policy.”
His other goals are described as reliability, customer communication and broadband. On virtually all fronts, Grega is happy with the PUD’s approach to his stated priorities so far, praising its approach to trimming trees to protect power lines, letting the public know about outages and aggressively expanding broadband in the region. He said he is ready to simply help that work continue and navigate any unforeseen hurdles.
“While I may not be doing the majority of the work, at least I can see the pitfalls,” Grega said. “Explain my background and how I think, and some of the problems we had in the past, so we don't repeat them in the future.”
Outside of his career with the PUD and continued involvement to this day, Grega helps run Frederick Henry Farm south of Chehalis, which he and his wife inherited from her father and began managing roughly 10 years ago. The couple also gets help from their two adult children and three grandchildren.
The Grega family is currently raising pumpkins for the fall season and also grows dahlias and organic hay, raises bees and uses a good chunk of the property for timber.
In fact, Grega is an active member of the Lewis County Chapter of the Lewis County Farm Forestry Association, which represents small private timber farms, and the farm won the chapter’s 2025 Forest Management Award.
Grega is also a member of the Washington State Farm Bureau, which has listed Grega as one of four local candidates in Lewis County that it is endorsing for the 2026 election cycle.
Find more information on Grega’s campaign Facebook page or by visiting https://tinyurl.com/mr3t93f9.
