Baldacci team bound by state university ties

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AUGUSTA – During an informal hallway meeting with University of Maine System Chancellor Joseph Westphal, some newly appointed Baldacci administration appointees asked if they should break into a chorus of “The Maine Stein Song.”

Westphal was taken aback, but he shouldn’t have been.

The top staff and Cabinet of Gov. John Baldacci – himself a University of Maine graduate – is heavily represented by alumni of the university system’s flagship campus, and to a lesser degree by its sister campuses.

Cabinet appointees alone claim at least a half-dozen UMaine degrees, and four others graduated from other campuses or the University of Maine School of Law. And the roster of top staff aides to Baldacci is also studded with UMaine alumni.

“We feel comfortable together,” said Trish Riley, director of the Governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance, who was Student Senate president before graduating in 1973 from what was then the University of Maine at Orono.

Baldacci, who earned a history degree in 1986 while he was a state senator, said the appointments of so many Stein Songers was not intentional.

“I wanted to select the best people,” said Baldacci, the first UMaine alumnus to occupy the Blaine House since Gov. John Reed finished up in 1967. All but one of the governor’s seven brothers and sisters also attended UMaine.

Former Govs. Joseph Brennan, Kenneth Curtis, Angus King and John McKernan all told Baldacci “to surround yourself with the best people because they’ll do the best work and they’ll make you look good,” he said.

The strong connection with the top echelons of state government has not escaped the attention of the university system, said spokesman John Diamond, a former legislative leader.

“I think it reflects the circles in which the governor traveled within the last 10 to 20 years,” said Diamond. “A lot of the people who are going to work for him have a lot in common in terms of their background, their ages and certainly their education.”

The UMaine connection extends to other branches of government that did not involve Baldacci appointments, Diamond noted.

The chief justice of the state supreme court, Leigh Saufley, was a psychology major at UMaine before she was drawn to law. Maine’s first female chief justice graduated from the University of Maine School of Law.

In the legislative branch, 81 of the 186 representatives and senators have at least one UMS degree, by Diamond’s count. He believes the university is better represented in government than most people realize.

Richard Winters, a government professor at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, alma mater of previous Maine Govs. King and McKernan, said he was surprised Baldacci didn’t draw more from Bates, Colby and Bowdoin colleges.

The University of Maine claims the largest share of Baldacci Cabinet members.

Rebecca Wyke, commissioner of the Department of Administrative and Financial Services, has double degrees from Orono: a bachelor’s in political science and master’s in public administration.

Environmental Protection Commissioner Dawn Gallagher has a master’s degree in public administration and a university law degree.

David Cole, transportation commissioner, holds an undergraduate public management degree and a master’s in public administration.

Robert Spear, who was reappointed by Baldacci as agriculture commissioner, holds a degree in agricultural sciences. Corrections Commissioner Martin Magnusson, another King administration holdover, is also a UMaine graduate.

Away from Orono, the University of Southern Maine conferred bachelor’s and master’s degrees to Susan Ann Gendron, a former kindergarten teacher who rose to become commissioner of the Education Department.

The University of Maine at Farmington is the alma mater of Patrick McGowan, a former legislator and federal official who is Maine’s new commissioner of conservation.

Two Cabinet officials did undergraduate work at private schools, but returned to their home state to attend the university’s law school.

They are Robert Murray, commissioner of the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation, and Michael Cantara, commissioner Public Safety.

There are a few exceptions to the pattern.

Marine Resources Commissioner George Lapointe of Hallowell, a King administration holdover, has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts and a master’s from the University of Minnesota.

Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Commissioner Roland “Danny” Martin of Caribou did not go to college but graduated from Officer Candidate School in 1969 while serving in the Army National Guard.

The head of Maine Department of Defense, Veterans and Emergency Management, Brig. Gen. Joseph Tinkham, spent a semester at UMaine before joining the military. Tinkham also attended OCS and later earned a degree from the State University of New York.

Baldacci has not posted a nomination for Labor Department commissioner. A consolidation plan involving two other departments – Human Services and Behavioral and Developmental Services – is in the works, so no nominees for those agencies have been named. And Baldacci has yet to name an economic development nominee.

One of the governor’s first appointees was Jane Lincoln as chief of staff. Lincoln, a UMaine graduate, is also a former deputy transportation commissioner.

Senior policy advisers Jack Cashman and Richard Davies both have degrees from the Orono campus, as do several other executive staffers. At least three other aides have degrees from the University of Maine School of Law, while others attended other state university schools.

Baldacci, noting that state agencies oversee a broad array of interests, said his appointments reflect the diversity of offerings at the university. Potential students too often overlook the range of academic offerings in the seven-campus system, he said.