Portal:Utah/Selected Biography/17 - Wgu Portal

Michael Leavitt (born February 11, 1951 in Cedar City, Utah) was the a 14th Governor of the state of Utah, the 10th Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and is currently the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

He was first elected to Governor in 1992, then he was re-elected in 1996 and in 2000 became only the second governor in Utah history to be re-elected to a third term. As Governor, he held leadership positions in national and regional organizations, such as the Council of State Governments, over which he presided for a year.

While governor, Leavitt and Roy Romer of Colorado were the two key founders of Western Governors University (WGU) one of the first exclusively online schools in the nation. In addition to Leavitt and Romer, seventeen others were signatory governors creating WGU as a non-profit private university.

On August 11, 2003, Governor Leavitt was nominated by President George W. Bush to be the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at a press conference in Aurora, Colorado. He was confirmed to this office on October 28, 2003 by a vote of 88-8 in the United States Senate. Leavitt resigned the Utah governor's office on November 5. He was sworn in as the 10th Administrator of the EPA the following day. On December 13, 2004, Leavitt was nominated by Bush to succeed Tommy Thompson as Secretary of Health and Human Services and was confirmed by the Senate by voice vote on January 26, 2005.