A commitment to community service has defined the career of First District Commissioner C. Edward Peterson.
Commissioner Ed Peterson, first elected to the Board in 2003, is currently serving his second four-year term as Johnson County Commissioner representing the First District. A lifelong Kansan, Commissioner Peterson has been a resident of Fairway for more than 20 years.
Commissioner Peterson has demonstrated a genuine commitment to public service as the Mayor of Fairway from 1993 to 2002, and a member of the Fairway City Council from 1988 to1993. He currently serves as the Chairman of the Mid-America Regional Council’s (MARC) Air Quality Forum, is a past Co-Chairman of the MARC Water Resources Task Force, and was Chairman of the Johnson-Wyandotte Counties Council of Mayors from 1998 to 1999. Commissioner Peterson is Chairman of the Environmental Citizens’ Advisory Task Force and works closely with the County’s Sustainability Coordinating Committee. Throughout Commissioner Peterson’s tenure he has focused his attention to sustainability and environmental issues and is a frequent speaker on those topics.
As a partner with the Finnegan, Conrad and Peterson law firm in Kansas City, Missouri, Commissioner Peterson specializes in public utility law, civil litigation and estate planning and probate work. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Philosophy from Wichita State University in 1974, and subsequently earning his Juris Doctor from Suffolk University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts in 1979, Commissioner Peterson returned to Kansas to practice law. In addition to his professional and civic commitments, Commissioner Peterson has been an adult supervisor for Boy Scout Troop 192 at Old Mission United Methodist Church since 1999. He has also been a member of the Shawnee Mission School District Committee for Excellence, the Shawnee Mission Education Foundation Board of Director, and the Kansas City Consensus Board of Directors.
At home in Fairway with his wife of 25 years, Laura, and their two children, Commissioner Peterson enjoys reading, cooking, and travel with a preference for mountain locations.
