Joyce Peppin serves as Executive Vice President & General Counsel at Dairyland Power Cooperative. In this role, she leads the Office of the General Counsel, which centralizes legislative, communications and economic development; legal and records; and regulatory affairs to support Dairyland’s strategic goals.
Peppin joined Dairyland as Director, Government Relations and Legal Services in August 2021, bringing extensive government affairs, legislative, general and utility counsel experience. She became the cooperative's, General Counsel in June 2022, and was promoted to Vice President & General Counsel in July 2023.
Peppin was previously employed as the Director of Government Affairs and General Counsel for the Minnesota Rural Electric Association (MREA), where she was responsible for directing MREA’s legislative, regulatory, and legal affairs. She specialized in electric co-op law, cooperative governance, state and federal regulatory matters, distributed generation, and utility land rights. Prior to MREA, Peppin operated a law practice specializing in trusts and estates, business, and commercial agreements.
Additionally, Peppin served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2004 to 2018; from 2014 to 2018, she served as Majority Leader and Chair of the Committee on Rules and Legislative Administration. During her time as a state representative, Peppin also served as Chair, Government Operations and Elections, and served on the Legislative Energy Commission. She also served on the Boards of the National Conference of State Legislatures, the State Legislative Leaders Foundation and Women in Government.
Peppin earned her bachelor’s degree in Arts, Speech Communication and Political Science from the University of Minnesota-Duluth. She holds an MBA from the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, Minn.) and her Juris Doctor from William Mitchell College of Law (St. Paul, Minn.). Peppin is also a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.