Gov. Martin O?Malley said his stress level is declining, as he named more Cabinet secretaries, especially for the most “troubled” departments.
O?Malley introduced two nominees Tuesday, and named two more, leaving him nine more departments to fill.
The governor nominated former District of Columbia Deputy Mayor for Children, Youth and Families Brenda Donald as secretary of Human Resources.
“We can do so much better than we have done in the last 10 or 20 years” at DHR, O?Malley said. During the campaign, he was highly critical of how the department managed foster care, welfare, child support and protective services. “In this department we can change the futures of families for generations and generations and generations,” he said.
“My eyes are wide open,” Donald said. She asked the department?s stakeholders to “hang in there with us. Our No. 1 job is to protect children.”
“No department has concerned me more deeply than corrections,” O?Malley said, as he introduced Gary Maynard as secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services, an appointment announced earlier. Maynard headed the prison systems in Iowa and also in South Carolina, and is “one of the best administrators in the country,” the governor said.
Maynard takes over a prison system where inmates have killed or wounded several guards in the last year. “The challenges are many,” Maynard said. “These problems didn?t happen overnight.”
“This is a very complicated system,” Maynard told The Examiner. Maryland, for instance, remains the only state “that runs a large metropolitan jail.”
Maynard said he?s had experience with “90 percent of what goes on” in Maryland. “It?s the 10 percent that is unique that I have to learn very quickly.”
O?Malley also appointed Independence Now Executive Director Catherine Raggio as secretary of disabilities. Independence Now serves as a nonprofit organization for people with disabilities in Montgomery and Prince George?s counties.
He named Prince George?s consultant Raymond Skinner, who heads his own consulting firm in the county, to oversee the Housing and Community Development Department, a post skinner also held under Gov. Parris Glendening.
