Roy Romer

ROY ROMER was born in Garden City, Kansas, and grew up in Holly in southeastern Colorado. He received a bachelor's degree in agricultural economics from Colorado State University in 1950, and a law degree from the University of Colorado in 1952. He also studied ethics at Yale University. A member of the U.S. Air Force, he was a military prosecutor in Germany. From 1958 to 1966, he served in the Colorado House of Representatives and in the Colorado State Senate. Governor Romer returned to public service in 1975, first as Colorado's commissioner of agriculture, then as the governor's chief of staff. He was appointed state treasurer in 1977. He was first elected governor of Colorado in 1986, reelected in 1990, and again in 1994, and, as a result of voter-adopted term limits, was the last Colorado governor to serve three terms. He was the general chair of the Democratic National Committee from 1997 to 2000. He was vice chair of the Democratic Leadership Council and chaired the Educational Commission of the States and the National Education Goals Panel. He was named Superintendent of Schools of the Los Angeles Unified School District in June 2000.