RALEIGH — Governor-elect Josh Stein has announced his first seven cabinet members for his incoming administration.
Two of his picks are members of outgoing-Gov. Roy Cooper’s cabinet: Pamela Cashwell and D. Reid Wilson. His choices also include the first Hispanic cabinet member as well as the first American Indian female member.
Stein has chosen Gabriel J. Esparza to lead the Department of Administration. He is currently a trustee at Central Piedmont Community College. Esparza was the associate administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Stein’s press release notes he will be North Carolina’s first Latino cabinet member.
Leslie Cooley Dismukes has been picked to lead the Department of Adult Correction. She currently serves under Stein at the N.C. Department of Justice as the criminal bureau chief. In the past, she served as chief of the criminal division at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina and was an assistant district attorney in the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office.
Wilson will move from being N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources secretary to lead the Department of Environmental Quality. In the past, Wilson served as deputy secretary of the department. He’s also served in various roles at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and was a past political director at the Sierra Club.
Devdutta Sangvai will be replacing Kody Kinsley as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. He holds medical and law degrees as well as an MBA, and is currently a professor of family medicine, pediatrics and psychiatry at the Duke University School of Medicine. Sangvai is a recent past president of Duke Regional Hospital and is currently president of the North Carolina Medical Board.
Moving from the Department of Administration, Cashwell will now head up the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources under Stein. She previously served as senior policy adviser and chief deputy secretary for professional standards and at policy and planning at the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. Cashwell is the first American Indian woman to head a cabinet department in North Carolina, per Stein’s release.
The Department of Revenue will be led by McKinley Wooten Jr., who is currently the assistant secretary for tax processing, research and equity at the agency. In the past, he’s served as a civil magistrate in Wake County, inspector general at the North Carolina Department of Justice, deputy secretary of the Department of Administration, and director and deputy director of the Administrative Office of the Courts.
Jocelyn Mitnaul Mallette, an attorney and Air Force veteran, was picked to lead the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. She served on active duty in the United States Air Force for 10 years as a prosecutor in the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps.
