Gary Herbert

Gary Herbert

Gary Richard Herbert is an American politician serving as the 17th and current Governor of Utah since 2009. He served as Lieutenant Governor from 2005 until August 11, 2009, when he assumed the governorship following the resignation of Governor Jon Huntsman. In 2010, Herbert was elected to serve out the remainder of the term in a special gubernatorial election. In 2012, Herbert won election to a full four-year term in 2012, defeating Democratic Businessman Peter Cooke with 68% of the vote and was re-elected to a second full term in 2016. He announced in 2019 that he would not seek re-election to a third fullterm in 2020, and he endorsed the gubernatorial candidacy of his Lieutenant Governor, Spencer Cox.

About Gary Herbert in brief

Summary Gary HerbertGary Richard Herbert is an American politician serving as the 17th and current Governor of Utah since 2009. He served as Lieutenant Governor from 2005 until August 11, 2009, when he assumed the governorship following the resignation of Governor Jon Huntsman. In 2010, Herbert was elected to serve out the remainder of the term in a special gubernatorial election. In 2012, Herbert won election to a full four-year term in 2012, defeating Democratic Businessman Peter Cooke with 68% of the vote and was re-elected to a second full term in 2016. Herbert announced in 2019 that he would not seek re-election to a third fullterm in 2020, and he endorsed the gubernatorial candidacy of his Lieutenant Governor, Spencer Cox. He is married to Jeanette Snelson Herbert; they have six children and sixteen grandchildren. Herbert served a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Eastern States Mission and later attended Brigham Young University, but did not graduate. His parents divorced when he was a toddler, and his mother soon remarried to Duane Barlow Herbert, who legally adopted him. Herbert was born in Preston, Idaho, and moved with her family as a young child to Springville, Utah. He graduated from Orem High School, and served in the Utah Army National Guard, becoming a staff sergeant. He set up a real estate firm, Herbert and Associates Realtors, and was president of the Utah Association of Counties and Utah association of Realtor. He was the vice chair for the National Governors Association from 2014 to 2015 and served as chair of the association from 2015 to 2016.

He won a seat on the Utah County Commission in 1990, where he served 14 years. He ran for the Republican nomination for governor in 2004, ultimately becoming fellow Republican candidate Jon Hunts man’s running mate in the general election. He and Huntsman defeated incumbent governor Olene S. Walker at the convention, before going on to win in the November election. Huntsman and Herbert faced little opposition during their 2008 campaign for re- election, avoiding a primary election after achieving a plurality of votes at the state Republican Party convention. The Republican ticket was reelected to office with a record of 77 percent of the votes. As the Republican governor, Herbert also served as the chairman of numerous statewide commissions, including the Commission on Volunteers and the Commission for Civic and Character Education and the Emergency Management Administrative Council. His record on those responsibilities was somewhat mixed, improving standards marginally but seeing the state slip overall on nationwide rankings published by the Campaign Disclosure Project. In 2007, Herbert oversaw the first statewide voter referendum to take place since the creation of the Lieutenant Governor’s post. His wife ran a child care service, The Kids Connection, and is Honorary Chair of the Governor’s Commission on Literacy. She is the mother of six children, one of whom is a first-grader and one of two first-grade students. He has served as a member of the Republican National Committee.