Commissioner Brown-Bland was appointed to the North Carolina Utilities Commission by Governor Beverly Eaves Perdue for an unexpired term ending on June 30, 2009 and for a full term beginning on July 1, 2009 and ending on June 30, 2017. 

Born in Burlington, North Carolina, Commissioner Brown-Bland attended Eastern Alamance High School in Mebane, graduating as valedictorian of her class.  She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and in 1987, she graduated from Duke University School of Law.

Brown-Bland began her professional career as federal Law Clerk to the Honorable Alexander B. Denson, United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina, and in 1989, entered private practice in Greensboro, NC with the law firm Hill Evans Jordan & Beatty (formerly Nichols, Caffrey, Hill, Evans & Murrelle).  In 1995, she became in-house attorney for AT&T Corp. (subsequently Lucent Technologies), where she was promoted to Senior Attorney and primarily supported the company’s federal contracting and related commercial technology licensing and business lines in Greensboro.

She joined the North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State in 2001, serving as Director of the Business License Information Office and of the Charitable Solicitations Licensing Section.  In December 2002, Brown-Bland became a member of the North Carolina Utilities Commission staff, where she was an attorney in the Administrative Division.  From 2005 until her appointment to the Commission, she served as Associate General Counsel with the City of Greensboro.

Brown-Bland has a history of community and civic service, having served on several boards including the Greensboro Bar Association, the Alamance County Historical Museum, and Western Piedmont Residential Services, a non-profit that provided residential service to autistic adults.  She is presently a member of the Board of Trustees of her church.  She and her husband, André, make their home in Alamance County