Mike Hankin, Wes Moore, Alicia Wilson among others will lead his team
Mayoral candidate and current Baltimore City Council President Brandon Scott has named nine business, non-profit, and government leaders to head up his transition team should he win the mayor’s race in two weeks. In a poll released last week, Scott was leading the race with 65 percent of the vote, compared to 14 percent for Independent challenger Bob Wallace and six percent for Republican candidate Shannon Wright.
“Building a new way forward for Baltimore will require us to come together like never before and advance innovative solutions to our deepest challenges,” said Scott in a press release announcing the appointments. “These nine people, representing multiple sectors and communities, believe in Baltimore’s potential and are not afraid to think outside the box.”
The nine co-chairs of the transition will be:
- Mike Hankin, President & CEO, Brown Advisory — Mike Hankin is president and CEO of the Baltimore investment firm Brown Advisory. He has spent his career advising a wide range of individuals and institutions on investment and financial matters. He serves as chairman of the Baltimore Healthy Harbor Project. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Center for Large Landscape Conservation, Associated Black Charities, Nature Sacred, and Business Executives for National Security. He is a trustee of Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine. Hankin also sits on the board of directors of Stanley Black & Decker, Inc. (SWK) and the boards of directors of three private companies: Tate Engineering Services, Inc., The Wills Group, Inc. and 1251 Capital Group, Inc.
- Ricarra Jones, Political Director, 1199 SEIU — Ricarra Jones is the political director for 1199 Service Employee International Union, the Maryland/DC division of the nation’s largest healthcare union. Jones has worked to improve the lives and working conditions of low-wage workers and successfully led the fight to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15. She also spearheaded efforts to ensure full-time employees earn paid sick leave. She serves on the executive board of the MD/DC AFL-CIO, Baltimore Women United, and the Baltimore City Branch of the NAACP.
- Cory McCray, State Senator, District 45 — Cory McCray represents Baltimore’s 45th Legislative District in the Maryland State Senate. Before that, he served in the House of Delegates. McCray is a lifelong Baltimorean, small business owner, husband and father of four. Since age 19, he has been a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He has dedicated his service in the Maryland General Assembly to working families, seniors and Baltimore’s communities.
- Wes Moore, CEO, Robin Hood — Wes Moore is a Baltimore native, bestselling author, combat veteran, and social entrepreneur who serves as the CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation, a charitable organization that addresses issues of poverty in New York City. Moore is best known for his best-selling book, “The Other Wes Moore,” which traces his life with another Baltimorean with the same name, but vastly different outcomes. He served as a captain and paratrooper with the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne, including a combat deployment to Afghanistan. He later served as a White House Fellow to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Before becoming CEO at Robin Hood, Moore was the founder and CEO at BridgeEdU, an innovative tech platform based in Baltimore addressing the college completion and job placement crisis.
- Cassie Motz, Executive Director, CollegeBound Foundation — Cassie Motz serves as executive director of the CollegeBound Foundation. Before joining CollegeBound, Motz served as deputy chief of staff to Governor Martin O’Malley. She had also served as deputy legal counsel to Governor O’Malley and as the interim director of the Governor’s Office for Children. Motz taught at a public middle school in the South Bronx, New York, through Teach for America and served as a law clerk for Judge James Robertson on the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC. She also worked in Washington as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. She served as a deputy attorney general for the District of Columbia, representing the city’s child welfare and mental health agencies. Cassie served on the University System of Maryland Board of Regents from June 2014 through March 2015. Motz serves on the board of Catholic Charities and as board secretary for the KIPP Baltimore Schools.
- Torrey Smith, Retired Baltimore Ravens Receiver and Philanthropist — Torrey Smith is the former wide receiver for the Baltimore Ravens and a two-time Super Bowl champion. He played college football at the University of Maryland and was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the 2011 NFL Draft. He also played for the San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles, and Carolina Panthers. He and his wife Chanel founded the Torrey Smith Family Foundation to support at-risk youth and those affected by domestic violence.
- Danielle Torain, Director, OSI-Baltimore — Danielle Torain previously worked in the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, where she led a citywide initiative to strengthen systems of support for incarcerated youth and worked on local jobs programs with the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development. She was the senior director of strategy and development at the Center for Urban Families. She spent four years at the Annie E. Casey Foundations’ Baltimore Civic Site, leading its place-based strategies in workforce development and economic inclusion, community capacity building and resident leadership. For the past several years, she has worked as an organizational development consultant.
- Alicia Wilson, Vice President for Economic Development, Johns Hopkins — Alicia Wilson is the vice president for economic development at the Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Health System. Before joining Hopkins, she served as the senior vice president of impact investments and senior legal counsel for the Port Covington Development Team. Wilson also held a partnership position at the law firm of Gordon Feinblatt for eight years. Wilson works with charitable organizations and was recently elected chair of the CollegeBound Foundation becoming the first African American and youngest board chair in the 30-year history of the organization. She sits on the board of the Walters Art Museum.
- Brittany Young, Founder & CEO, B-360 — Brittany Young is a lifelong Baltimorean and the founder of B-360, which uses dirt bike culture to end the cycle of poverty, disrupt the prison pipeline and build bridges in communities. After noticing the lack of diversity in STEM fields, Wilson helped partner FIRST Lego League with Baltimore City Public Schools to host an annual Girls and STEM summit and teach technology courses to K-12 students. As a faculty member of the BCCC STEM Scholars Program, she provides scholarships and internships with NASA to motivate black students to pursue STEM careers, reaching them at the community college/GED level. In 2017, Brittany founded B-360 to intersect STEM education, dirt bikes, and unrecognized talent. B-360 has received Baltimore Fishbowl’s “Baltimost” Award, Baltimore Corps’ Elevation Award, and awards from the Social Innovation Lab at Johns Hopkins, the Warnock Foundation, Red Bull Amaphiko, and Black Girl Ventures. She has been recognized as a B’More History Maker and a Top 10 Baltimore Start-Up and was CLIA’s Inspiring Voices 2018 honoree. She is a 2020 TED Fellow.
“I know they will collectively bring a strong focus on building a more equitable Baltimore not just for the next term, but for the future of our city,” said Scott. “I look forward to working closely with them to build a dynamic and inclusive transition process that sets our city on the path to success.”
Scott’s transition team will focus on “rebuilding the city government from top to bottom to ensure functioning, equitable, and efficient operations for all of Baltimore’s residents.”
The transition co-chairs plan to meet before the end of the month.
All inquiries about the mayoral transition and ideas for a Scott administration should be directed to brandon@brandonforbaltimore.
