From lowering the cost of health care and health insurance to addressing our workforce shortage, there are many challenges facing our state – but with these challenges also comes the opportunity to chart a new and better course.
I have presented in the last several weeks 15 people nominated for cabinet positions and as of the other day, those 15 people have now been confirmed by the committees and by the state Senate.
I presented those cabinet nominees only after a long search and review of nearly 1,000 resumes by a strongly bipartisan committee put together by my team back in November.
I am very pleased with the results.
Good morning, I am Governor Janet Mills, and thank you for listening.
The new 15-member cabinet includes eight women and seven men, three distinguished veterans - one Air Force, one Marine and one Army veteran - and four commissioners who have resumed their former cabinet positions. The cabinet is the most gender-diverse in Maine history.
And together, they are experienced individuals who will help usher in an era of new leadership in Maine.
You know, people like Judy Camuso, Amanda Beal, Jerry Reid - they’ll marshal a team of committed public servants who have a lot of common sense and a little bit of dirt under their nails to defend Maine’s natural resources at the Departments of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry and Environmental Protection.
Individuals like distinguished veterans Michael Sauschuck, Randy Liberty, and Major General Douglas Farnham who have served their country well and who will continue to serve our state as leaders of the Department of Public Safety, the Department of Corrections, and the Department of Veterans and Emergency Management.
Well-respected and experienced individuals like Laura Fortman, Anne Head, and Patrick Keliher who have served under previous administrations and who now resume their cabinet positions.
And individuals like Jeanne Lambrew, Pender Makin, Heather Johnson, Bruce Van Note, John Rohde and Kirsten Figueroa who are experts in their fields and who will lead Maine in addressing the top challenges facing our state in the areas of health care, education, and transportation among other issues.
The people of Maine I know will be well served by the diverse experiences of these individuals in this new cabinet, with its wealth of knowledge and its commitment to our state.
And, these cabinet members will be freely sharing information with those people you elected to come to the State Capitol to serve in the Legislature and develop good public policy together.
So with that cabinet now in place, I really look forward to working with them on behalf of you, the people of Maine.
I am Janet Mills, Governor of the State of Maine, and I thank you for listening.