Kathy Hochul is the 57th and first female Governor of New York State. She began her career in public service on her local Town Board, before serving as Erie County Clerk, and then as a member of Congress for New York’s 26th Congressional District.

As Lieutenant Governor from 2015 to 2021, she successfully spearheaded numerous initiatives and lead the administration’s economic development and job creation efforts across the state. She chaired the statewide Regional Economic Development Councils, and served as co-chair of the State’s Heroin and Opioid Task Force, Women’s Suffrage Commission, Child Care Availability Task Force. She also helped New York State manage the COVID-19 pandemic response, while focusing on a recovery that builds back better and more inclusive.

Since being sworn into office in 2021, Governor Hochul has proposed a bold vision for New York’s future. In her first State of the State address, she declared that this was a new era for New York, and laid out a comprehensive list of policy proposals and initiatives that will help New Yorkers and their families now, while ensuring the State’s economic recovery is swift and vast. Governor Hochul worked with the legislature to pass a budget that included historic-level of investments in the people, places, and things that will make that happen – from healthcare workers and middle-class families to infrastructure, education, and workforce development – while funding the State’s reserves to historic levels as well. And in the wake of the Supreme Court’s reckless decisions to strip away abortion rights and strike down gun regulations, Governor Hochul led the charge in Albany to successfully pass new legislation protecting reproductive health, strengthening New York’s gun safety laws and beginning the charge to add an Equal Rights Amendment to the New York State Constitution.

Governor Hochul was born and raised in Western New York. She and her husband, Bill Hochul, are the proud parents of two children and recently became grandparents for the first time.