Update on Governor Healey's Cabinet and Leadership Appointments
Updated as of 2/23/23 from Politico:
A third of Healey’s Cabinet secretaries served with her at various points over her eight years as attorney general. So did some of the deputies now filling out the governor's environment and public safety teams:
— EEA Secretary Rebecca Tepper was Healey’s energy and environment bureau chief.
— Acting HHS Secretary Mary Beckman, who will eventually become an adviser to incoming secretary Kate Walsh, was Healey’s health care and fair competition bureau chief.
— Climate chief Melissa Hoffer, who joined the administration by way of the EPA, was Healey’s climate bureau chief before that.
— Terrence Reidy was an assistant attorney general before joining the Baker administration and being reappointed public safety secretary by Healey.
— Gina Kwon, Healey’s criminal bureau chief, is now her undersecretary of law enforcement.
— Elizabeth Mahony, Healey’s new Department of Energy Resources chief, was her senior energy policy adviser in the AG’s office.
Several of the governor's top aides also came over from One Ashburton Place. Chief of staff Kate Cook was Healey’s first assistant attorney general as well as a Patrick administration alum. Senior adviser Gabrielle Viator was Healey’s chief of staff and senior policy adviser. Jillian Fennimore continues as Healey’s communications director. And April English is now chief secretary after serving various roles in the AG’s office.
Many of Healey's secretaries and deputies spent years representing and enforcing policies for the state agencies they’re now leading. It’s a lineup of trusted associates with subject-matter expertise who can likely ease Healey’s transition without her having to micromanage from the corner office. And she’s balancing the bevy of lawyers with other Cabinet hires who bring extensive experience on Beacon Hill and in the private sector.
“While they could enforce penalties and litigate in the attorney general’s office, [Healey’s deputies] couldn’t themselves implement the policies. Now they’re in a position to implement in the executive,” former Attorney General Scott Harshbarger told Playbook. “Had I been elected governor in 1998, I can’t imagine that I wouldn’t have hired a number of people in that office because I knew them, knew what they knew substantively and their strengths and weaknesses.”
Updated as of 2/21/23, from State House News and other sources
Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper announced on February 21 that she appointed Elizabeth Mahony, a veteran of the attorney general's office and the Massachusetts Senate, as commissioner of the Department of Energy Resources effective March 27. She replaces Patrick Woodcock, who led DOER for the last three-plus years.
Tepper, who was chief of the energy and environment bureau in Healey's AG office before joining the administration, said she had worked with Mahony for a number of years and could vouch for her ability to come up with creative solutions to complex problems.
"Elizabeth will be at the epicenter of our clean energy transition, and I know she will prioritize ratepayers and advance equity in everything she does," the secretary said.
DOER oversees some of the programs that will be relied upon as essential tools in Massachusetts' efforts to decarbonize and become a net-zero emissions state by 2050: the MOR-EV electric vehicle rebate system, the Green Communities designation and grant program, the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART) program, a major energy storage initiative, the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, clean heating and cooling efforts, and more.
Mahony most recently worked for Attorney General Andrea Campbell, and Healey before her, as assistant attorney general and senior policy advisor for energy. She had previously worked in the Energy and Telecommunications Division, where she focused on utility clean energy procurement, solar program development, consumer protections and legislative engagement. Her Beacon Hill experience includes time as legislative and budget director and committee counsel to former Sen. Benjamin Downing, who led the Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy, and as public affairs director for former Sen. Susan Fargo. She once served as acting general counsel for DOER.
Updated as of January 25, 2023, from State House News and Other Sources
In the first week of her term, Gov. Maura Healey is operating with a Cabinet that's in transition, with some holdovers from Gov. Charlie Baker's team paired up with a growing number of Healey's own sworn Cabinet picks. See the chart above for the information we have as of 1/18/2023.
Governor Healey is eyeing an eventual 12-person Cabinet.
MassDOT Secretary appointee Gina Fiandaca, tech services appointee Jason Snyder will be sworn in later this month to give them time to transition out of their current jobs.
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From January 11, 2023
Baker's Transportation Secretary Jamey Tesler will continue stay on during this interim period and Matthew Moran, an assistant secretary at the Executive Office of Technology Services and Security, will be acting technology services and security secretary. Jennifer Maddox, undersecretary at the Department of Housing and Community Development under Baker, is acting economic development secretary until Hao is sworn in on Jan. 17.
Healey also still has two Cabinet positions with acting secretaries where she has not yet named a permanent person to fill the role. Mike Doheny, Baker's undersecretary at the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development, is acting labor and workforce development secretary, and former chief of the Health Care and Fair Competition Bureau in the attorney general's office Mary Beckman is acting health and human services secretary.
While her exact plan has not been unveiled, Healey intends to split the housing and economic development secretariat into two in a bid to better address the "housing crisis" in Massachusetts. Though she ran on this idea, Healey has not yet said who she hope will help her lead her housing efforts. Until the secretariat is divided, Maddox, and Hao after she is sworn in, will serve as housing and economic development secretary, Hand said.
Healey also has not yet named her own veterans' service secretary -- a role that will rise to a Cabinet level position on March 1 under a law passed last year. For the time being, Baker's secretary Cheryl Lussier Poppe continues to serve in the role, Hand told the News Service.
"These hiring processes are ongoing," Healey said Friday. She later added, "As with all these appointments, we are working as diligently and expeditiously as possible and then make announcements as soon as soon as we're ready to." - Sam Drysdale/SHNS | 1/10/23 11:04 AM
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As of January 4, 2023
Governor-Elect Healey will be sworn in as Governor on January 5, 2023. Here is the Cabinet that Governor Healey has so far announced: Matt Gorzkowicz as secretary of administration and finance, Patrick Tutwiler as education secretary, Gina Fiandaca as transportation secretary, Rebecca Tepper as secretary of energy and environmental affairs, Melissa Hoffer as a Cabinet-level climate chief, Yvonne Hao as economic development secretary, and Jason Snyder as secretary of technology services and security.
On January 4, she appointed an acting secretary of health and human services and the announcement of a series of senior staff positions. Mary Beckman, a Beacon Hill veteran who recently served as the chief of the Health Care and Fair Competition Bureau in Healey's attorney general office, will run the largest secretariat in Massachusetts on an interim basis until a more permanent secretary of health and human services is named, Healey's team announced Wednesday afternoon. Once Healey appoints her long-term secretary, Beckman will shift into the role of senior advisor at HHS.
Jillian Fennimore, a former editor of the Somerville Journal and the Watertown Tab who has worked in press roles at the attorney general's office since 2012, was named Healey's communications director. It's the same role she filled for Healey at the attorney general's office. Karissa Hand, who has spoken for numerous advocacy groups during her time at Melwood Global, will make the jump from press secretary to Healey's gubernatorial campaign to press secretary for the Healey administration.
April English, who worked about 20 years in the attorney general's office including as an assistant attorney general and chief of organization development and inclusion during much of Healey's time as attorney general, will be the administration's chief secretary. The chief secretary oversees an administration's efforts to fill positions on boards and commissions throughout state government.
Healey also announced Marcony Almeida-Barros, who previously worked as chief of the Community Engagement Division of the attorney general's office, as deputy chief of staff for access and engagement; Alicia Rebello-Pradas, a former chief of the Policy & Government Relations Division at the AG's office, as deputy chief of staff for legislative affairs; Cecilia Ugarte Baldwin, a former deputy director of policy and cabinet affairs and deputy legal counsel for Gov. Deval Patrick, as deputy chief of staff for policy and cabinet affairs; Kristian Hoysradt, previously federal programs manager for the National Association of REALTORS, as deputy chief of staff to Lt. Gov.-elect Kim Driscoll; and Driscoll's 2022 campaign manager Juan Gallego as assistant deputy chief of staff to Driscoll.
