Attention: This is not a current document. It is an excerpt from the Web page of the former Colorado governor, Roy Romer. It is displayed by the Colorado State Archives for its historical value.

Roy Romer, the 39^th governor of Colorado, is a veteran political and business leader.

First elected in 1986, re-elected in 1990 and again in 1994, Romer has been the state's chief executive since January 1987 and, as a result of voter-adopted term limits, will be the last Colorado governor to serve three terms. He was Colorado State Treasurer from 1977-87, and a member of the governor's cabinet. He served in the Colorado House from 1958-62 and in the Colorado Senate from 1962-66.

Romer's Colorado agenda centers on those issues, like the quality and affordability of child care, faced by our youngest children and their parents; improving K-12 education; reforming higher education; using technology to improve learning at all levels; making state government more efficient and user friendly; improving public safety; maintaining a healthy economy; and working with local governments and citizens to plan for and direct Colorado's rapid growth and to protect its beauty and environment.

His goal is to "make Colorado the best place to raise a child," and this theme has earned support from a wide range of the political spectrum.

America's senior Democratic governor, Romer is known nationally as a consensus builder on complex and controversial issues. He was recently named a Public Official of the Year by Governing Magazine.

In January 1997, Romer was elected to serve as general chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Romer has served as national vice chair of the Democratic Leadership Council, and was a national co-chairman of the Clinton-Gore '96 campaign. In 1992, he was co-chairman of the Democratic National Platform Committee. He chaired the Democratic Governors' Association in 1991.

Romer chaired the Education Commission of the States in 1994-95, and served on the Bipartisan Commission for the Reform of Entitlements in 1993-94.

In 1992-93, he served as chair of the National Governor's Association, and remains on the organization's executive committee. In 1995, Romer was part of a bipartisan effort by the nation's governors to reform Medicaid.

A national leader in education policy, Romer chaired the National Education Goals Panel, focusing its work on preparing our youngest children for school. As that panel's first chairman in the early 1990s, he was responsible for helping develop the first national education report card. Romer is now co-vice chairman of ACHIEVE, an effort by the nation's governors and major corporate leaders to reform education by the use of standards and assessments. In 1996, he was awarded the prestigious Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education. Romer, along with Utah Governor Mike Leavitt, is leading the development of the Western Governors' University, an innovative, "virtual university," which will be available to people throughout the Western United States.

The 68 year-old Romer, who grew up in the southeastern Colorado town of Holly, is also the owner, with one of his sons, of a chain of John Deere equipment stores in Colorado, Virginia and Florida. He helped develop Colorado's Centennial Airport, ran a flying school and owned and operated a ski area. He also helped manage his family's agricultural operations throughout Colorado for several years, and was a lawyer in Denver in the 1950s and 1960s.

Romer 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, and was a legal officer in the U.S. Air Force.

He and his wife, Bea, have seven children and 15 grandchildren. Romer was born in Garden City, Kansas, on October 31, 1928. His family moved to Holly, Colorado, when he was 6 months old.

Last modified June 18, 2003