Barbara Roberts

In December of 1998 former Oregon Governor BARBARA ROBERTS joined Portland State University's Hatfield School of Government's Executive Leadership Institute as Associate Director of Leadership Development. Her first major leadership program began operation in September of 1999 and is called the "Legacy Program". It serves local, state government and non-profit leaders in Oregon and Washington. Gov. Roberts also teaches a graduate level course entitle "Politics, Policy, and Risktaking."

Prior to her association with Portland State University, Governor Roberts had a five-year association with the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, serving as Director of the Harvard Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government and later as a senior fellow to the Women and Public Policy Program.

In November of 1990 Barbara Roberts was elected as Oregon's first woman governor. During her four year term (1991-1995), Governor Roberts was recognized as a strong advocate for environmental management, for human and civil rights and for creative workforce development.

In 1993, Oregon was recognized by Financial World Magazine as the 7th best managed state in the nation. The National Alliance for Business also recognized Oregon as State of the Year in 1991 for its workforce and education innovations. In 1994, the state won a prestigious Innovation in Government Award from the Ford Foundation and the Kennedy School of Government in recognition of the nationally acclaimed Oregon Benchmarks program. Roberts used the Benchmarks' measurable goals as an integral part of her budgeting and planning efforts during her term. She is recognized and respected nationally as a government re-inventor.

Governor Roberts worked with the Clinton Administration to secure federal waivers needed to implement the Oregon Health Plan, and she successfully pushed for state funding for the plan and for immediate start-up coverage. More than 140,000 Oregonians were insured under the new health plan after the first year of implementation.

During her four-year term, Roberts doubled the number of children under Oregon's state-paid Head Start program, and she established a Housing Trust Fund that financed thousands of new units of affordable housing. She led the efforts that funded and expanded programs that helped more than 19,000 Oregonians move from welfare to the workplace and self-sufficiency.

Governor Roberts led funding efforts for expansion of the light rail line linking Multnomah County to Washington County in the Portland Metropolitan area. As a Multnomah County Commissioner in 1978 she was one of the necessary votes to begin construction of the fifteen-mile light rail line from Gresham to Portland. One of the new light rail cars is named in her honor. Her belief that environmental responsibility and economic health can exist side-by-side was strengthened during her four year tenure as state CEO. When Roberts finished her term, Oregon had the lowest unemployment rate in 25 years and the highest investment in the state's history while preserving Oregon's comprehensive land use system, stopping construction of two unneeded dams and supporting the Endangered Species Act and the Clinton Forest Plan.

Roberts' "Conversation With Oregon" allowed her to use interactive television to speak with thousands of Oregonians on government, taxes and state priorities. She used this same educational television system to speak with hundreds of Oregon teenagers on the subject of teen pregnancy. Both of the efforts were a national "first".

In 1996 Roberts was recognized with the naming of an alternative high school in her honor. Barbara Roberts High School includes the Teen Parent Program, the GED Program and other alternative education programs, making it the largest high school in Salem, Oregon.

Prior to being elected governor, Barbara Roberts was elected Oregon's Secretary of State, serving from 1985 to 1991. In Oregon, the Secretary of State also serves as Lt. Governor and State Auditor. She was a member of the Oregon House of Representatives from 1981 to 1985 and served as majority leader in 1983 and 1984. Roberts also served as a county commissioner, served a decade as an elected school board member and four years as an elected community college board member. Roberts began her years of public service as an advocate for disabled children as she fought for the educational rights of her autistic son.

A descendent of Oregon Trail pioneers and a fourth generation Oregonian, Governor Roberts was married to the late State Senator Frank Roberts for twenty years before his death in October of 1993. She has two adult sons, Mike and Mark Sanders, two grandchildren ages 14 and 12, and seven step-grandchildren ranging in age from 24 years to 3 years old.

Roberts is an immediate past board member for the Oregon Hospice Association, the Women of the West Museum in Boulder, Colorado, and the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C. She is currently a member of the board of trustees of Population Action International in Washington, D.C. She is also a member of the Advisory Councils for the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, Oregon Compassion in Dying, and the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission. She also serves as the Co-Chair for Oregon Public Affairs Network and on the Advisory Committee for the Robert Straub Library at Western Oregon University. She took an appointment from Gov. Ted Kulongoski in January of 2004 as a member of the Health Advisory Commission.

Her #1 effort right now is the new Relief Nursery in the St. Johns neighborhood of Portland that will serve children ages 0-3 years who are victims or at-risk of abuse or neglect. They will be serving more than 75 families without cost to the families by December of 2003. Barbara has served as finance chair for two years when the project raised its first $2 million dollars. Their new center opened in October of 2002.

Governor Roberts is an active public speaker now focusing on issues of leadership, women in politics, environmental stewardship and death and grieving. Her recently released book, "Death Without Denial; Grief Without Apology" has received positive reviews from the press and public and is in its third printing. She has just started work on her second book, a political autobiography.