Gov. Matt Mead sent his list of 105 nominees for 41 state boards and commissions to the state Senate on Friday.
The nominees will take seats on the Oil and Gas Conservation, Game and Fish, and Transportation commissions, the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees, the Business Council, and many others.
The governor also submitted the names of 11 nominees to serve in seven cabinet posts and on the Board of Equalization and the Public Service Commission.
All the proposed appointments must be approved by the state Senate.
“These boards, commissions and agencies are important to Wyoming,” Mead said in a statement released Friday. “I thank everyone who has agreed to serve, including volunteers who are so giving of their time.”
Among the nominees are several former legislators including Kermit Brown, who left the Legislature last year after serving as Speaker of the House, Bill Hawks, a Casper oilman who served as a state senator, and Gerald Geis, a former state senator from Worland.
Mead nominated Brown to a first term on the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees along with David Fall of Gillette. The governor seeks approval of two reappointments to the UW board, John MacPherson of Saratoga, and Jeff Marsh of Torrington.
Hawks is a reappointment to the Pipeline Authority. Geis was nominated to the Water Development Commission.
Bruce McCormack, former publisher of the Cody Enterprise, was nominated to the Wyoming Aeronautics Commission. He serves as a member of the Wyoming Transportation Commission.
Mead also tapped Jackson Hole Mountain Resort President Jerry Blann for the Wyoming Business Council. If confirmed, Blann would join Kelly Lockhart, reappointed by the governor, as one of two representatives from Teton County on that body.
The list submitted by the governor noted nominees still must be found for two slots, one on the Pari-mutuel Commission and a second on the School Facilities Commission.
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Mead also submitted a list of nine nominees for his cabinet. Four among them will appear before the Senate for confirmation for the first time.
Tony Young will lead the Department of Enterprise and Technology Services. Delbert McComie will run Construction Management. Mike Reed will lead the State Fire Marshal’s Office. Darren Westby will serve as director of the Department for State Parks and Cultural Resources. The four men are new appointees, or were named to the job during the recent interim period.
Both Tony Young and Mike Reed formerly worked in the governor’s office. Reed was a policy advisor, and Young formerly served as Mead’s deputy chief of staff.
As a participant in yesterday’s Leap Into Leadership workshop through the Wyoming Women’s Legislative Caucus, I strongly agree with Maggi Murdock’s criticism of Governor Mead’s failure to nominate more women to the UW Board of Trustees. Leap Into Leadership is a workshop held in Cheyenne every year to encourage women to run for public office in Wyoming. The message of this workshop is essential because, as Maggi’s statement suggests, women face endless challenges and barriers when pursuing leadership positions.
Few people would outwardly say they don’t believe women should hold more leadership positions in Wyoming, yet women are underrepresented in nearly all public offices. As a strong leader in our state, I expect Governor Mead to provide a better example of what it means to grant women more opportunities to hold leadership positions in the Equality State.
28 February 2017
To the Editor:
One of last week’s press releases from the Governor’s office included a document listing the Governor’s nominees for boards and commissions. Included was the list of individuals the Governor has nominated to the UW Board of Trustees. Two are reappointments: John McPherson (R) and Jeff Marsh (R). The other two nominees are Kermit Brown (R) from Albany County and David Fall (I) from Gillette. Many of us know Kermit Brown from his work in the Legislature as a representative from Albany County. Dr. Fall is a pediatrician from Gillette.
I have nothing against either one of these gentlemen. However, I write today to air my concerns, as I have previously, that the Governor’s office seems to find only men to serve on the UW Board of Trustees. The last time (2015) I voiced my concerns to the Governor’s office, I was told that the Governor’s advisors had tried to find women nominees but they were unsuccessful. Perhaps that will be the response again this year?
The Equality State of Wyoming has a population that is nearly half women (49%). The University of Wyoming, the state’s only university, has a faculty composed of 41% women and a student body composed of 53% women. Thus, given the demographics of the state and the University faculty and students, I find it not just puzzling or disconcerting, but unacceptable, that our Governor has appointed 11 of the 12 members (92%) of the UW Board of Trustees and, of those 11, he has managed to appoint only 2 (18%) women. I do not know the racial or ethnic backgrounds of the members of the Board appointed by the Governor, but it appears that in a state that has more than 15,000 residents who are not white, the Governor is also unable to find any persons of color to appoint to the Board, either. This is a Board that could do with some diversity of opinion, experience, and perspective. The Governor has missed another opportunity to provide that diversity.
The University of Wyoming belongs to the people of Wyoming. Thus, the concern is not just why the Governor seems unable to appoint more women or people of color to the UW Board of Trustees. The larger and more pressing concern is what will be the continuing effects — for the University and the state — of a University of Wyoming Board of Trustees that lacks diversity?