Not many people enter state government after a successful decades-long run in the private sector. Even fewer end up serving in both the state Senate and the executive branch. That’s the path of former Milbank Fellow Ann Gillespie, now serving as the acting insurance commissioner of Illinois. She’s added a whole new dimension to the term […] More

In Kentucky, state Rep. Kimberly Moser, a neonatal intensive care and flight nurse turned policymaker, managed to get sweeping legislation passed on both those issues after just a few terms in the legislature. More

Dannette Smith was not a late bloomer.  With a trailblazing mom — not many Black women were assistant school superintendents in a midwestern steel town like East Chicago, Indiana in the 1960s — she grew up confident, with a role model at her side.   And watching the civil rights movement unfold from a young age, […] More

In this Q&A, Milbank Memorial Fund National Director of Population Health and Health Equity Morgan McDonald, MD, talks with Fred Baldwin, a Republican state senator from Wyoming and a 2022-23 Milbank Fellow, about his background and how it has influenced and inspired his public service. Mr. Baldwin, a physician assistant and volunteer firefighter, discusses how some […] More

In a conversation with Milbank Memorial Fund president Christopher Koller, Fatmata Williams, director of medical administration at the Connecticut Department of Social Services Division of Health Services, reflects on how her background influenced and inspired her public service. A 2021–2022 participant in Milbank’s Emerging Leader Program, Williams discusses her shock at the racism she experienced […] More

In conversation with Milbank Memorial Fund former program officer Kate McEvoy, Della Au Belatti, Hawaii State Representative, and Vincent Pinkney, Deputy Director of Managed Care Operations for Tennessee’s state Medicaid agency, discuss the communities where they grew up, how they work with people with different origin stories, and mentors who have shaped their leadership styles. More

Tenacious. Pragmatic. Undaunted. A bulldog on value. These are just a handful of the ways people in Washington State explain Rep. Eileen Cody’s spectacular success at health care reform. More

This conversation with Colorado State Senator Cleave Simpson and North Dakota State Health Officer Nizar Wehbi, MD, is the first in a series focused on policymaker “origin stories”—and how their backgrounds have influenced and inspired their public service. More

Next month, Richard Gottfried, chair of the New York State Assembly’s health committee, will retire after 52 years of service as a legislator. In a Q&A with Milbank Memorial Fund’s Kate McEvoy, Rep. Gottfried reflects on his career and the importance of borrowing good ideas from other states through groups like Milbank’s network of state policymakers. Rep. Gottfried also discusses how he has worked across the aisle, mentored new legislators, and what he sees as today’s urgent health policy challenges. More

In a Q&A with Milbank, Mayes describes what drives his leadership in state vocational rehabilitation, which offers employment-related services to those with functional, developmental, cognitive, emotional, or other disabilities. More