![[photograph of Secretary of State Willis]](/msa/mdmanual/08conoff/images/i002970a.jpg)
JOHN T. WILLIS, Secretary of State
Chief of Staff to County Executive, Prince George's County, 1990-94. Member, Electoral College, 1992.
Secretary of State, 1995-. Member, Governor's Executive Council, 1995-; Board of State Canvassers, 1995-. Chair, Governor's Commission on Maryland Military Monuments, 1995-. Member, Maryland Civil War Heritage Commission, 1995-; Advisory Committee for the Jefferson Patterson Historical Park and Museum, 1995-; Advisory Board, Schaefer Center for Public Policy, University of Baltimore, 1995-; Commission to Revise the Election Code, 1996-98; Task Force on Charitable Giving (Maryland Gives!), 1996-; Board of Trustees, Maryland Historical Trust, 1998-; Task Force to Study the History and Legacy of Slavery in Maryland, 1999-.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, November 1, 1946. Attended Westminster High School; Bucknell University, B.A. (economics), cum laude, 1968. Served in U.S. Army; Judge Advocate General Corps, 1968-71; Defense Appellate Division, 1971-74; Legal Assistance Officer, Aberdeen Proving Grounds, 1974-75. Harvard Law School, J.D., 1971. Attorney. Member, Maryland State and Carroll County Bar Associations. Adjunct professor (business & economics), Western Maryland College, 1979-. Author, Presidential Elections in Maryland (1984). Member, Democratic State Central Committee, Carroll County, 1982-86. Member, Democratic National Committee, 1987-89. Chair, Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, 1995. Married; two children; one grandchild.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, November 1, 1946, Mr. Willis attended Carroll County public schools, graduating from Westminster High School in 1964. Mr. Willis graduated cum laude from Bucknell University with a B.A. in economics in 1968. He received his J.D. in 1971 from Harvard Law School with an emphasis on constitutional law.
In the United States Army, Mr. Willis served in the Judge Advocate General Corps from 1968 to 1971 at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, and Fort Meade, Maryland. In the U.S. Army Judiciary, he was Clerk to the Army Court of Military Review and served with the Defense Appellate Division, 1971-74. Mr. Willis completed his tour of duty as the Legal Assistance Officer at Aberdeen Proving Ground, 1974-75. As an attorney, he engaged in private general practice in Westminster, Maryland, and in Baltimore City from 1975 to 1990 with extensive experience in small business, real estate, zoning and land-use law. He was Chief of Staff to the County Executive of Prince George's County from 1990 to 1994.
Mr. Willis is an author, historian, and widely recognized expert on the Maryland electorate and the State's demographics. An adjunct professor, he has taught in the Business and Economics Department at Western Maryland College since 1979 and frequently lectures throughout the State. His published works include Presidential Elections in Maryland, Lomond Publications, Inc., 1984; "The United States Court of Military Appeals: Born Again," 52 Indiana Law Journal 151 (1976); "The United States Court of Military Appeals: Its Origin, Operation and Future," 57 Military Law Review 27 (1972). He was a contributing author to Western Maryland: A Profile, T. H. Hattery, ed., (1980), and Justice and the Military, H. E. Moyer, Jr., ed., (1972). From December 1973 to August 1974, he edited The Advocate, a bimonthly newsletter for military defense counsel.
Secretary Willis chairs the Governor's Commission on Maryland Military Monuments and is the Governor's representative on the Maryland Historical Trust Board of Trustees and the Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum Advisory Board. He served on the Commission to Revise the Election Code (1996-98), which led to modernization and recodification of Maryland's election laws. Currently, Secretary Willis serves on the Maryland Gives! Task Force created by the Governor and the General Assembly to conduct research on the nonprofit sector and charitable giving, and recommend ways to promote and improve charitable giving throughout the State. He also serves on the Advisory Board to the University of Baltimore's Schaefer Center for Public Policy, and the Advisory Committee on Ethics and Accountability in the Nonprofit Sector of the Maryland Association of Nonprofits. Secretary Willis is a member of the Maryland Historical Society, the Carroll County Bar Association, the Maryland Bar Association, and a past president of the Carroll County Arts Council.
From 1987 to 1989, Mr. Willis served on the Democratic National Committee and was Vice-Chair of the Maryland Democratic Party. At the Democratic Party National Conventions, he served on the Rules Committee in 1976, 1984, and 1992; as a Delegate in 1988 and 1996; and as an Alternate Delegate in 1980. He served as a member of the Democratic State Central Committee for Carroll County, having been elected with the highest number of votes in the primary election on September 14, 1982. In 1992, he was a member of the Electoral College from Maryland. Secretary Willis was elected Chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State in 1995 and serves as their representative to the Democratic National Committee.
Mr. Willis is married to Kathy S. Mangan, a published poet and Professor of English at Western Maryland College. He is the father of two children - Karen M. Willis, a graduate of American University and Vermont Law School, and James T. Willis, a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College - and has one granddaughter, Kate Willis Collins.
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