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DBED deputy to step up to head department
ANNAPOLIS — Maryland’s top economic development official is stepping down, becoming the latest in a line of cabinet members and staff to leave the O’Malley administration this year.
Gov. Martin O’Malley announced Wednesday that Christian S. Johansson, secretary of the Department of Business and Economic Development is resigning. Deputy Secretary Dominick Murray will replace Johansson in mid-January.
Robert Walker, who has been serving as DBED‘s chief operating officer will replace Murray as deputy secretary. He previously served as assistant secretary for business and enterprise development, as well as Maryland’s secretary of Agriculture
Johansson, DBED’s secretary since 2009, is leaving to join Baltimore-based Laureate Education Inc., formerly Sylvan Learning Systems Inc., where he will head a new group focused on university partnerships. Johansson is 40 years old and recently married, and he said he made his decision after he and his wife began thinking about their future together.
“For the first time, you really have to sit down with another person and talk about your future in very much a joint way,” Johansson said in an interview Wednesday. “Four years in this role had been a good amount of time to really get a lot of things done. … What we talked about was personal goals and ‘where do we want to be?’”
The conversation led Johansson to decide he was ready for a new job. Douglas L. Becker, chairman and chief executive officer for Laureate, provided that opportunity.
“I am delighted Christian is joining our team at Laureate,” Becker said in a statement. “He has been an outstanding public servant in Maryland and someone whose career I have followed for many years.
“I am looking forward to working with Christian as he takes on this new leadership position within our organization and helps us in our efforts to increase access to quality higher education around the globe.”
Johansson’s accomplishments at DBED are headlined by InvestMaryland, an $84 million venture fund raised through an online tax credit auction. That money is being disseminated to startup and early-stage technology companies in the state.
“InvestMaryland was the tip of the arrow of the spear,” he said.
But Johansson grew up in a family of academics — his mother is a professor at the Johns Hopkins University, his father a professor at the University of Nebraska — and he said he felt Laureate was a homecoming of sorts.
“This is really going back to my roots in some ways. Education is intrinsically linked to economic development,” Johansson said. “I’ve grown up in a household that was very much focused on education and higher education, and I think it’s exciting. Laureate has to be one of those organizations that has truly embraced what it means to provide global and high quality education.”
In a statement, O’Malley praised Johansson “for his work in creating an economic development strategy centered on creating jobs not just for today, but creating jobs for generations to come.
“Under Christian’s leadership, we put in place a number of key programs to put Maryland at the forefront of entrepreneurship and innovation, including the largest venture capital program in State history,” O’Malley said. “I could not have asked for a more engaged or visionary person to help me move Maryland’s economy forward and I wish him well in his new endeavors.”
Murray’s appointment was no surprise to most; Johansson’s deputy worked as a business liaison for O’Malley when he was mayor of Baltimore, and has the governor’s trust to carry out economic initiatives.
The soon-to-be secretary said his strength was as a facilitator, and that he looked forward to bringing a business partnership mentality to the agency.
“I want to set the example and set the tone for the entire agency to act as a liaison,” Murray, 58, said in an interview. “I want to be the team leader of a team of liaisons. My goal is to have everybody act as though every business is our customer, because they are.”
In the immediate future, Murray will be trying to accelerate appropriation of InvestMaryland money and developing online resources for businesses. For example, the agency is working on a web-based method for businesses to apply for licenses.
Kathleen T. Snyder, president and CEO of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, said Murray was a natural fit to replace Johansson. She said she was confident he would work with the business community to make the state more competitive.
“He has done a very good job in supporting the efforts of DBED to help the business community grow here in Maryland,” Snyder said. “We’re looking forward to working with Dominick.”
Johansson said the transition would be fairly seamless because Murray was involved in several key economic initiatives.
“Dominick’s been a partner throughout this. We’ve begun a number of initiatives that I think he understands the need for us to follow through and implement,” Johansson said. “Dominick has some really creative and interesting and innovative ideas around manufacturing … and some great ideas for making it easier for business to do business.
“You’re talking about a new secretary that will know the lay of the land.”
Critics of O’Malley and DBED, however, were quick to disparage Murray’s selection. Change Maryland, an anti-tax group and frequent O’Malley antagonist, said the administration should have conducted a national search. Larry Hogan, Change Maryland’s CEO, questioned Murray’s background as a writer, producer and salesman before joining O’Malley’s staff in Baltimore.
“I wish the administration had undertaken a national search to find the best economic development professional in the country or at least someone with a track record in attracting businesses and creating jobs,” Hogan said in a statement.
Johansson is the third cabinet secretary and fifth high-profile member of the O’Malley administration to depart this year. Some expect the departures to continue to come with great frequency over the final two years of the governor’s second term.
As that term’s finish draws closer, finding replacements for cabinet and top staff positions may become more difficult, some say, in part because potential appointees and hires would see the position as too short-term.
Earlier this month Rick Abbruzzese, O’Malley’s director of public affairs and confidant, announced plans to join Rifkin, Livingston, Levitan & Silver LLC. Joseph C. Bryce, who was the administration’s top lobbyist in the General Assembly, joined Annapolis-based Manis Canning & Associates in November.
Earlier this year two O’Malley cabinet members also left the administration. Labor, Licensing and Regulation Secretary Alexander M. Sanchez departed in May to become Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s chief of staff, and Transportation Secretary Beverley K. Swaim-Staley resigned in July and was then named president of the Union Station Redevelopment Corp., which is working to expand Union Station in Washington.
Transportation is still vacant despite what some leaders believe to be a desperate need for new transportation funding, a policy goal made more difficult without a secretary in place.
That vacancy highlights the difficulty in filling cabinet vacancies at this point in the governor’s tenure, which expires in January 2015. He is constitutionally prohibited from running for governor again and has formed a federal political action committee — a move that has fueled talk of his candidacy for national office in 2016.
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