Governor Deval Patrick

Deval Patrick was reelected to a second term as Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in November 2010, renewing his commitment to expanding opportunity and prosperity in Massachusetts. Governor Patrick’s life has charted a path from the South Side of Chicago to the U.S. Justice Department, Fortune 500 boardrooms, and now the Massachusetts State House. In each of these capacities, Governor Patrick has been guided by the advice of his grandmother: hope for the best and work for it.

First elected in 2006 on a platform of hope and change, Governor Patrick entered office propelled by an unprecedented grassroots campaign. Despite a challenging economic environment, the Patrick administration maintained or expanded the state’s investment in critical growth sectors while delivering timely budgets and cutting state spending. Governor Patrick funded public education at the highest levels in the history of the Commonwealth and its school reform initiatives earned Massachusetts the top spot in the national Race to the Top competition. And through targeted initiatives that play to the Commonwealth’s unique strengths, like his landmark 10-year, $1 billion program to promote the state’s life sciences industry, the Governor has positioned the state as a global leader in biotech, bio pharmaceuticals and IT, and as a national leader in clean energy, including making Massachusetts home to the country’s first offshore wind farm.

Governor Patrick committed the state to renewing its aging and neglected infrastructure and oversaw the expansion of affordable health care insurance to over 98% of Massachusetts residents. The Patrick administration also accomplished major reforms that had eluded decades of other elected leadership, reforming the state’s pension systems, ethics laws, and transportation bureaucracy.

Patrick came to Massachusetts in 1970 at the age of 14. A motivated student despite the difficult circumstances of poor and sometimes violent Chicago schools, he was awarded a scholarship to Milton Academy through A Better Chance, a Boston-based organization. From that time forward, it has been Massachusetts people, schools, and institutions that have given Governor Patrick the opportunity to excel. He sees his service as governor as pay-back for the opportunities the Commonwealth has given him.

Governor Patrick is a graduate of Harvard College, the first in his family to attend college, and of Harvard Law School. After clerking for a federal judge, he led a successful career in the private sector as an attorney and business executive, rising to senior executive positions at Texaco and Coca-Cola. In 1994, President Clinton appointed Patrick as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, the nation’s top civil rights post. Diane and Deval Patrick have been married for thirty years and have two adult daughters and one grandson.