“Joe Fiordaliso was a consummate public servant, a trusted colleague, and a good friend,” Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement. He added that, “Joe skillfully led our work to responsibly transition to a clean energy economy while always putting the needs of consumers first.”

Fiordaliso was one of the longest-serving members of Murphy’s cabinet. The governor named him president of the Board of Public Utilities in January 2018. It is an often-overlooked agency that regulates services such as gas and electricity, but under Murphy it took on greater responsibility as he set a goal of reaching 100 percent clean energy by 2050 — and then moving it up to 2035, one of the most aggressive in the nation.

That meant the BPU under Fiordaliso was responsible for the regulatory push to electrify homes, overseeing the startup of the state’s offshore wind industry and helping coordinate New Jersey’s re-entry to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, among other things.

Fiordaliso was no newcomer to those issues. He was named a BPU commissioner by then-acting Gov. Richard Codey, a Democrat, in 2005 and renominated by Republican Gov. Chris Christie twice in his two terms.

He had a long career in policy and politics before coming to state government.

A native of Newark and graduate of Montclair State University, Fiordaliso worked as an educator at Essex County’s Vailsburg High School and Bloomfield High School from 1967 to 1986, according to Montclair State. He was also an adjunct professor of accounting at the County College of Morris for 12 years and was director of government relations at Saint Barnabas Health Care System, according to the university.

Fiordaliso was elected in 1988 to the Livingston Township Council and served for three terms, which included three stints as mayor. He also served as the director of planning and economic development for Essex County and worked “extensively” with the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, according to Montclair State. Fiordaliso was district director for Codey when he was Senate president and then, when he was elevated to acting governor in 2004, served as a deputy chief of staff.

Fiordaliso was most recently deeply entrenched in wind power, a critical component to Murphy’s clean energy plan. The administration had set 2025 for the state’s first offshore wind turbine project to be finished and a broader goal of becoming the country’s leading producer of wind power by 2040.

He is survived by his wife, Marilyn, two children and six grandchildren, according to the governor’s office.

Much of Fiordaliso’s work was done behind the scenes, but he spent a good deal of time swatting down theories captivating public interest that wind projects have been killing whales and that the administration is seeking to ban gas stoves.

“Let’s be clear, we are not requiring, not mandating anyone to give up their gas stove,” Fiordaliso said in July. “If that were the case, I would be thrown out of my own house.”

Fiordaliso, who often wore a lapel pin depicting a wind turbine, was bullish on the state’s future as a wind energy leader, which is also critical to President Joe Biden’s energy plans.

He recently took wind energy companies to task for what he called “intolerable delays” that could imperil Murphy’s goals. It was prescient: Last week the developer of the state’s first wind farm, Orsted, said the project would be set back to 2026, a year behind Murphy’s target date.

“When you have a project of this magnitude, there are going to be challenges along the way,” Fiordaliso said last year. “We always like to go into things thinking it is going to be smooth sailing when many times you hit a pothole or two. But the important thing is that we all want to work it out and it will be worked out.”