Prior to this role, Ms. In this position, Ms. Altman served as the top aide to former Commissioner Miller, oversaw policy initiatives for the agency, and coordinated policy with other state government agencies and external groups. Prior to joining the Pennsylvania Insurance Department, Ms. Altman worked at the U. Pennsylvania is the fifth largest insurance market in the United States, in terms of premium volume, and the 14th largest insurance market in the world. The Insurance Commissioner is entrusted with enforcing the insurance laws of Pennsylvania, including protecting consumers and monitoring the financial solvency of Pennsylvania domestic insurance companies.
Pennsylvania has been at the forefront of advancing the regulation of domestic IAIGs. The department also investigates and enforces state laws and regulations pertaining to insurance and responds to consumer inquiries. The department provides the public with information and educational brochures regarding various types of insurance. As Deputy Secretary, Jennifer was honored to oversee four bureaus that helped vulnerable workers, certified the safety of buildings and other building components, ensured that individuals with disabilities who are unable to work receive social security benefits, and facilitated resolutions in labor mediations and arbitrations.
Jennifer currently resides in Harrisburg, Pa. Thomas Cook — Acting State Fire Commissioner Acting Pennsylvania State Fire Commissioner Thomas Cook has an extensive background in public and nonprofit administration, serving at the municipal, county, and state levels, with a primary focus on public safety and emergency management.
Cook most recently served as Administrator of the Pennsylvania State Fire Academy, with oversight of the firefighter training system for the commonwealth. He retired from active firefighting as Assistant Fire Chief of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire, overseeing the day-to-day operations of a person metropolitan fire department.
He has served as a career Company Officer in the Mt. All told, he has over 36 years of emergency services experience. He is also a Pennsylvania State Fire Instructor and has taught extensively for the local fire and emergency management training agencies. Prior to pursuing a career in public safety, Cook was employed as a Corporate Controller for Consolidated Graphics where he was a turn-around specialist.
He has received awards as Fire Instructor of the Year, Fire Officer of the Year, and Letters of Commendation for his work managing various projects within the fire service.
He has been decorated twice in his career for rescues, earning a Unit Citation for rescues made from an Apartment Fire in Mt.
Lebanon, and the Red Cross Hero Medal, for the rescue of a civilian prior to the arrival of suppression units in Pittsburgh. Cook enjoys spending time with his wife, Tina. He also has fun mangling wood in his woodshop as he tries to master the art of woodworking.
Additionally, he is an avid model railroader and train buff. Working with the Wolf campaign and other campaigns and stakeholders across the commonwealth, Cross was the Executive Director of Campaign for a Fresh Start in Cross began her political career working on campaigns in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Prior to his appointment with the Wolf Administration in January , Will served as Legislative Liaison for the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, where he was responsible for the development and implementation of legislative strategy and advised the Board on critical issues impacting the agency.
In this capacity, Will was responsible for working across party lines to advance budget and policy negotiations for major administration priorities, including education and community and economic development issues.
A northeast Pennsylvania native, Will has a B. Dennis M. Dennis is also an active board member of the Allegheny County Airport Authority. Dennis Davin assumed duties as acting secretary of community and economic development in Pennsylvania on January 20, , and was confirmed by the Senate on May 12, In this role, Degraffenreid leads the Pennsylvania Department of State.
The mission of the Department is to promote the integrity of the electoral process, to support economic development through corporate filings and transactions, and to protect the health and safety of the public through professional licensure.
The department upholds the highest standards of ethics and competence in the areas of elections, campaign finance, notarization, professional and occupational licensure, charitable solicitation, and professional boxing, wrestling and mixed martial arts. The program areas under her supervision included voter registration, voting processes, precinct and voting site administration, election event administration and voting systems. She is married and the proud mom of two daughters in college and one son in high school.
She also worked closely with local communities to revitalize local parks and trails. Cindy Dunn assumed duties as acting secretary of conservation and natural resources in Pennsylvania on January 20, , and was confirmed by the Senate on June 2, He was promoted to deputy commissioner of operations, overseeing the administration, coordination, and supervision of field operations for the Pennsylvania State Police in She joined the Wolf Administration in as a Correspondence Specialist.
Hassell has more than three decades of experience as a senior tax policy analyst with the Department of Revenue and the Pennsylvania Senate. In December , Governor Ed Rendell nominated Hassell as Secretary of Revenue, after which he was confirmed on April 14, and served in that capacity until January Hassell has previously served as Deputy Secretary for Tax Policy for the Department of Revenue, where he coordinated department decisions on all aspects of tax policy.
Hassell evaluated the impact of proposed tax legislation, regulations, policies, procedures and public statements, as well as researched and prepared tax revenue projections for the Office of the Budget and the Governor. Hassell has authored three tax policy articles published in State Tax Notes, a leading multi-state tax news source. Kennedy School of Government. Hassell has worked for the Department of Revenue since , and previously worked for the department from to During the nine years between, Hassell served as budget specialist for the Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee.
Hassell resides in Susquehanna Township, and he and wife Ellen are proud parents of three children, Rosie, Ben and Lydia. She also served as Senior Policy Advisor to former MN Governor Mark Dayton, where she managed a diverse portfolio of issues, including workforce and economic development, labor, housing, broadband and telecommunications, elections and campaign finance, veterans and military affairs, Tribal-State relations, and gaming.
Allison is a graduate of St. Denise A. She joined the administrative team in Prior to joining the leadership team, Dr. Johnson spent 13 years in private practice in Meadville. She has been involved in various community and regional groups focusing on the needs of women and is the current board chair of the Meadville Area Free Clinic. She is past chair of the board of directors of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. Little brings more than 30 years of leadership experience in the public sector, which includes strategic planning, operations, budgeting, government regulations and compliance, and formulating policies.
Prior to returning home to his Pennsylvania roots, Mr. Between periods of corrections service, Mr. Little served as Chief Administrative Officer for the City of Memphis, Tennessee, where he was responsible for oversight of the Memphis Police Department, among other agencies. Little has a gift and passion for public speaking on a wide range of subjects.
He is also very involved with youth mentorship and community improvement. In addition, he ran the State Energy Office, and was charged with coordination of renewable energy and energy efficiency issues. McDonnell also served several years as executive policy manager for former Commissioner Pamela A. Witmer of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, focusing on electric, natural gas and water issues, as well as cybersecurity and the impact of environmental regulation on energy markets.
Throughout his career, McDonnell has worked to achieve success in the nexus between energy and environmental issues. He and his wife Colleen have four children, and live in Harrisburg. In that role, he developed hands-on experience conducting investigations and interviewing witnesses and suspects to build cases against those who defrauded the welfare system.
He was then promoted to the position of Welfare Fraud Investigator Supervisor, where he trained and worked with OSIG investigators and agents to further their investigations.
He also realized the important part the OSIG has in ensuring those who are truly entitled to benefits receive them. A benefits system must be built on integrity, and OSIG is designed to maintain that integrity.
Upon his promotion to the role of Operations Manager for the Central Region, Miller began to turn his attention toward what has become a career-long focus: increasing government efficiency through streamlining processes. He led a team through a detailed process review of the Long-Term Care Program, working with staff to codify existing and institute new procedures that would more efficiently implement the program.
Miller soon became a bureau director, where he led the consolidation of two separate bureaus into the Bureau of Administration, Policy, and Training, saving taxpayer money and creating more effective business processes. He was responsible for the overall administration of the agency, along with extensive policy, program, and regulatory review.
These meetings fostered new and innovative coordination between the agencies, leading to the creation of the Electronic Referral System. Miller has spent his career working to make state government function better, and he continued that work in his role as the Deputy State Inspector General.
This new training program eventually led to what is now the Commonwealth Investigator Training Program. Newsome previously served on the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, to which he was appointed in December and confirmed in April He brings nearly four decades of private sector business experience, including accounting, finance and management, to the secretary of administration position.
Newsome was a senior executive in the retail and wholesale distribution industry, serving as executive vice president and chief financial officer of the Wolf Organization and playing a key role in transitioning the company from a traditional two-step distributor to a national sourcing company of kitchen and bath cabinets, decking, and other building products.
Following that, from until , he served as controller at the York Daily Record, where he oversaw finance and accounting and human resources, including union contract negotiations and participated in the sale and transfer of newspaper ownership. In some states appointed boards have the primary responsibility for individual programs and agencies and are responsible for the selection of department and agency heads.
This is particularly true in the field of education, but boards still retain responsibility for a broad range of other programs in fields such as labor, transportation and health and human services. In many states the members of these boards are named or nominated by the governor.
And in many of these cases, board members are subject to confirmation by one or both houses of the legislature. Other boards play more limited regulatory or advisory roles.
In most states boards oversee the licensing and regulation of numerous professions and business areas. In other states they advise the governor on areas of importance such as the environment and economic development. A large number of states provide for the independent selection of certain executive branch positions. Most noteworthy among these positions are lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and treasurer. The position of lieutenant governor exists in the overwhelming majority of states, where the position is most often filled by popular statewide election and jointly with the governor, although in a small number of cases the role of lieutenant governor is assigned by state law to another position in either the executive or legislative branch e.
The positions of secretary of state, attorney general, and treasurer are all subject to statewide popular election in the majority of states, and at least one of the three is elected in most of the remaining states. Governors generally have limited authority in the appointment of state comptrollers and pre and post audit department heads. The education department head is independently elected statewide in 14 states and is appointed—independent of gubernatorial approval—by a board or agency head in 20 states and two territories.
In most states and territories, the higher education head is appointed by a board independent of gubernatorial approval. A number of states also provide for the statewide election of one or more other department heads, among them public utility regulators and the heads of agriculture, labor, and natural resources departments.
As with governors, other statewide elected positions may be subject to age, citizenship, and state residency requirements, as well as term limits. In most states the cabinet fulfills two functions:. In a number of states, governors have created sub-cabinets to bring together agencies to address issues such as the needs of children. Cabinet membership may be a product of appointment to a specific office or be subject to selection by the governor.
Cabinet size, and the frequency of cabinet meetings and formality and extent to which a governor uses his or her cabinet for advice and assistance, varies among the states, commonwealths, and territories. The authority for governors to issue executive orders is found in state constitutions and statutes as well as case law, or is implied by the powers assigned to state chief executives. Governors use executive orders—certain of which are subject to legislative review in some states—for a variety of purposes, among them to:.
As chief executive, governors are responsible for ensuring their state is adequately prepared for emergencies and disasters of all types and sizes. Most emergencies and disasters are handled at the local level, and few require a presidential disaster declaration or attract worldwide media attention. Yet governors must be as prepared for day-to-day events—tornadoes, floods, power outages, industrial fires, and hazardous materials spills—as for catastrophes on the scale of Hurricane Katrina or the September 11 terrorist attacks.
States focus on four stages of disaster or emergency management:. These components afford a useful rubric for thinking about the cycle of disasters and emergencies and for organizing recommendations for state action. During an emergency, the governor also plays a key role in communicating with the public during an emergency, providing advice and instructions and maintaining calm and public order.
State emergency management laws usually define how a governor may declare and end a state of emergency. In some cases, the necessary response to a disaster is beyond the capacity of state and local governments. A state may petition the President to declare a major disaster.
The declaration of a major disaster triggers a variety of federal programs depending on the scope of the disaster and the type of losses experienced. Qualifications and tenure Legislative—including budget and veto—authority Appointment sovereignty. Qualifications and Tenure Qualifications States, commonwealths, and territories vary with respect to minimum age, U. Term Limits Gubernatorial terms are four years in every state, commonwealth, and territory but New Hampshire and Vermont, which have two year terms.
Impeachment All states except Oregon provide for the impeachment of governors. Legislative Role Governors play two broad roles in relation to state legislatures. Second, and more familiarly, governors coordinate and work with state legislatures in: approval of state budgets and appropriations; enactment of state legislation; confirmation of executive and judicial appointments; and legislative oversight of executive branch functions. Approval of State Budgets and Appropriations Governors develop and submit annual or biennial budgets for review and approval by the legislature.
Enactment of Legislation Governors often use State of the State messages to outline their legislative platforms, and many governors prepare specific legislative proposals to be introduced on their behalf. Veto Power All 50 state governors have the power to veto whole legislative measures.
Confirmation of Appointments Many gubernatorial appointments require legislative confirmation. Legislative Oversight Governors interact with their legislatures to help ensure that their priorities, goals, and accomplishments are accurately presented and positively received during oversight hearings and other legislative activities that address and evaluate executive branch implementation of legislatively mandated programs and services. Boards and Commissions The roles played by boards and commissions vary considerably by state and by program.
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