Gov. Doug Ducey appointed Gregg Brewster and Doug Goodyear to the Arizona Board of Regents in March to succeed two regents whose terms expire this year.
Current Regents William Ridenour and Ron Shoopman were appointed to ABOR in 2014 by former Gov. Jan Brewer and are finishing out their eight-year terms. Ridenour and Shoopman's departures mark the last of the 10 regents elected before Ducey took office, and soon every member on the Board will have been elected by Ducey.
Ducey has appointed sixteen members to ABOR.
Brewster and Goodyear "have big shoes to fill" in replacing current Regents Ridenour and Shoopman, Ducey said in a statement.
“The appointees are also bipartisan,” said CJ Karamargin, the director of communications at the governor's office. "These appointments go beyond just the naming of someone. The influence that they can have lasts for years, and in some cases, maybe even, decades.”
Members of the Arizona Senate Education Committee are expected to make a full Senate confirmation vote to approve the appointees this month.
ABOR is responsible for overseeing the state's three public universities — ASU, NAU and UA — and is tasked with approving financial budgets, appointing new presidents, fix tuition and fees and more.
Brewster, a retired sales executive and a graduate of ASU, currently serves on the board for the Association of Operating Room Nurses and as the 2022-23 chair-elect of the ASU Alumni Association. While at ASU, he was an undergraduate ASU Government Representative and on ASU's baseball team.
With expertise in health care sales and marketing, Brewster told ASU News he hopes to create a patient-centered surgical curriculum at the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation by connecting nursing students with AORN leaders.
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“I always made a point in my career, regardless of what I was doing in the health care industry, to be involved in civic, charitable foundations or educational boards and committees,” Brewster said to ASU News.
Goodyear is the CEO and a founding member DCI Group, a lobbying firm based in Washington, D.C. He moved to the state in 1998 and was an active member of the Young Presidents Organization in Arizona.
Goodyear was picked by former Sen. John McCain to run the 2008 Republican National Convention but had to resign after it was reported that his firm used to represent the government in Myanmar, formerly Burma.
Goodyear was vice president of Walt Klein and Associates in North Carolina, serving corporate and political clients. He was also involved in Colorado politics in the 1980s, where he served as political director for the state GOP.
“The board will undoubtedly benefit from their leadership as we work together to ensure access to quality public higher education in Arizona and drive solutions that impact our state,” ABOR chair Lyndel Manson said in a statement.
ABOR spokesperson Sarah Harper and the new regent appointees did not respond for a request to comment.
Reach the reporter at tjgantz@asu.edu and follow @GantzTori on Twitter.
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Tori is a politics reporter covering voting rights, labor, and University Student Government Polytechnic at the State Press. They are currently working for the News Collab and Wick Communications to create the Voices Listening Project, a collaborative research project in Arizona funded by the Google News initiative.
