PG&E, Retired
Former Vice President of Environmental, Health, Safety, Technical and Land Services
A native of Arkansas, Robert L. Harris came to Oakland as a teenager. He 
graduated from Oakland Technical High School, Merritt College, and San Francisco State University, which in 2007 elected him to its Hall of Fame. In 1972, he received his Juris Doctor degree from the UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law, where he was an associate editor of the California Law Review. He joined the legal staff of PG&E and practiced law there for seventeen years. In 1985, he became the first and only lawyer in PG&E’s history to argue and win a case for it in the U.S. Supreme Court.
As a lawyer, a community leader, and a civil rights activist, Robert has distinguished himself in numerous endeavors and has received numerous prestigious awards.
From 1996 to 2000, he was a commissioner for the Port of Oakland and previously served as a planning commissioner for the City of Richmond. He is a member of the Executive Leadership Council and the board of directors of Alta Alliance Bank in Oakland.
Robert is a former president of the Charles Houston Bar Association of the San Francisco Bay Area and a member of its Hall of Fame. In 1979-1980 he served as president of the National Bar Association. His leadership in the legal profession earned him top awards from the NBA, the American Bar Association, and the California Association of Black Lawyers, which he helped found.
Active in energy matters, he is a former general counsel of the American Association of Blacks in Energy. He has been a board member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council; the Congressional Black Caucus’s National Energy Policy Commission; the California EPA’s Advisory Committee on Environmental Justice; the California League of Conservation Voters; and he African American Experience Fund of the National Parks Foundation.
He has received the top award of both the NAACP, for his litigation of civil rights issues, and the United Negro College Fund. He is a past chair of UNCF’s Bay Area Advisory Board. Awards have also been bestowed on him by the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the Charles Houston Bar Association, the California Association of Black Lawyers, and the Downs Community Development Corporation. On five occasions he was selected by EbonyMagazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Blacks in America.
He served as the Grand Polemarch (national president) of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity and is a recipient of its highest honor, the Laurel Wreath. He also has been a Sire Archon (president) of the local Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity branch as well as the fraternity’s Grand Sire Archon (national president).
Robert is married to Glenda Newell-Harris, MD, and is the father of four children.
