The Best and the Brightest in Maryland Government, Volume I

Mar 09, 2026

For all the ink spilled on scandal, mismanagement, and political ambition, Maryland government still has a quiet cadre of public servants who show up every day and deliver for taxpayers. This series, “The Best and the Brightest,” is about them. It’s about the people who take broken systems and fix them, who turn legislation into results, and who remember that every line item and regulation ultimately lands on a real Marylander’s kitchen table.

To launch the series, we start with five officials whose work is measurable, recent, and consequential: Courtney Finklea Green at Maryland 529; Housing Secretary Jake Day; Labor Secretary Portia Wu; Natural Resources Secretary Josh Kurtz; and one “wild card” slot that will rotate in future installments as more evidence comes in.

Courtney Finklea Green: Turning a Punchline into a Benchmark

If you want a gold standard for administrative competence in today’s Maryland, you start with Courtney Finklea Green. Maryland 529 was, not long ago, a case study in failure — error‑ridden accounts, furious parents, and a reputation that hovered near the bottom of national college savings rankings.[1][2] Under Treasurer Dereck Davis, Green stepped into that mess and did something most politicians only talk about: she fixed it, fast.

Within roughly two years, Maryland’s College Investment Plan climbed into the top tier of national plans, earning a “silver” rating from Morningstar and landing in the conversation with the very best direct‑sold 529s in the country.[1][2] Assets under management topped roughly 10.7–11 billion dollars, performance numbers turned competitive over both one‑ and five‑year windows, and the basic blocking and tackling of customer service, record‑keeping, and communication were rebuilt almost from scratch.[1][3][2] Senior officials began describing the turnaround in almost incredulous terms, noting that a program lately known for crisis had become a national model in a single term.[1][4][2]

Green doesn’t sit in the Governor’s cabinet; she reports through the State Treasurer. But if the metric is “take a broken, distrusted institution and make it work again for ordinary families,” she is the benchmark. Everyone else on this list is, at best, chasing the standard she has already set.

Jake Day: Housing, Community, and Real Money on the Ground

Housing policy is where Maryland’s promises about equity and opportunity either come true or collapse into the usual talking points. As Secretary of Housing and Community Development, Jake Day’s ledger is less about press releases and more about whether money reaches real projects.

By that yardstick, the numbers are eye‑catching. In Fiscal Year 2025, Day’s department generated an estimated 8.5 billion dollars in economic impact, 1.9 billion dollars in wages and salaries, and the equivalent of more than 40,000 jobs through its portfolio of housing, community development, and business support programs.[5] The agency financed nearly 4,000 newly constructed or substantially rehabilitated housing units in a single year, including the first UPLIFT community in Baltimore’s Orchard Ridge — a state‑funded effort to reverse disinvestment and build homeownership in neighborhoods long written off.[5]

On the policy side, Day has become the administration’s point man on an ambitious housing package: the Housing Expansion and Affordability Act, the Housing and Community Development Financing Act, and the Renters’ Rights and Stabilization Act.[6] Those bills aim to increase supply, stabilize renters, and attack concentrated poverty — and they are serious enough that housing advocates awarded Day their first “Advocate for Change” award for his role in pushing them through.[6] For a state in the middle of a housing crisis, that kind of sustained focus on both bricks‑and‑mortar and statute is exactly what you want from a cabinet‑level operator.

Portia Wu: Making “Workforce” Mean Something

Every modern governor talks about workforce; Portia Wu’s job is to make sure Marylanders can actually feel it. Moore tapped Wu, a former Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training at the U.S. Department of Labor and a senior public policy executive at Microsoft, to run Maryland’s Department of Labor.[7][8] That résumé is not just ornamental. It means she has seen, up close, both how federal dollars flood through job‑training pipelines and how the private sector thinks about talent.

Under Wu, Labor sits at the center of Moore’s economic story: pairing record‑setting job growth and low unemployment with a promise that those jobs are not just available, but accessible to people who have traditionally been left behind.[9][10][7] Her department oversees the difficult, unglamorous mechanics of matching Marylanders to training, apprenticeships, and mid‑career transitions — the invisible work behind every podium line about “pathways” and “ladders.” While the administration takes its lumps on other fronts, business groups and local officials who praise Maryland’s labor market are, knowingly or not, grading Wu’s shop.

Wu’s national‑level policy chops and pragmatic approach to implementation make her one of the few cabinet secretaries who can credibly claim to understand both the statute books and the shop floor. In a state that lives or dies on its workforce, that matters.

Josh Kurtz: The Bay, the Land, and the Long View

If Maryland has a secular religion, it is the Chesapeake Bay. Natural Resources Secretary Josh Kurtz is the person currently responsible for translating that civic devotion into practical stewardship. A lifelong conservationist and outdoorsman, Kurtz leads the Department of Natural Resources’ work on water quality, bay resilience, forest conservation, park access, and fisheries — all of the long‑horizon, slow‑moving files that most politicians will never live to see fully resolved.[11]

Under the Moore–Miller administration, Kurtz has emerged as a central figure in the Chesapeake Bay Legacy Act, a major legislative push to improve water quality, promote regenerative agriculture, and streamline oyster aquaculture and fisheries management.[12] The bill would give DNR tools to offer longer‑term leases on state agricultural lands to farmers using regenerative practices, align conservation with farm economics, and modernize the way the state handles watershed‑scale restoration projects.[12] It’s the kind of work that rarely makes headlines but shapes everything from flood risk in Ellicott City to whether a kid in Somerset County grows up with swimmable water and a viable seafood industry.

Kurtz’s portfolio is a reminder that good government is not just about fixing crises; it is about quietly preventing the next ten crises by doing the slow work of stewardship now.

A “Best and Brightest” List with Room to Grow

Any first‑round list like this is, by definition, incomplete. There are other names who belong in the conversation: the technocrats modernizing state IT, quiet leaders in child welfare and higher education, and a long tail of mid‑level managers who will never see their names in print but keep agencies upright.[13][14][10][11] This series will return to them.

For now, this Volume I short list has a clear through‑line. Green, Day, Wu, and Kurtz are not just loyal to their principals; they are demonstrably effective at turning policy into outcomes. They fix what is broken, scale what works, and keep their focus on Marylanders who do not have lobbyists or PACs to speak for them. In an era when it is easy to be cynical about Annapolis, they are proof that competence still exists — and that it still matters.

If you’d like, I can next help you tune the tone (sharper, more populist, more insider) or swap in a fifth profile once you decide who you want in the rotating “wild card” slot.

Citations:

[1] Maryland Paid $834 Million to Not Let Courtney Finklea Green Run ...

💰 Maryland Paid $834 Million to Not Let Courtney Finklea Green Run Its Pension Fund

Barry

July 7, 2025

💰 Maryland Paid $834 Million to Not Let Courtney Finklea Green Run Its Pension Fund

Fourteen months ago, the Maryland General Assembly handed oversight of the state’s troubled $9 billion college savings program to Treasurer Dereck Davis, tasking him with restoring performance and public trust. He made a bold move: he empowered Courtney Finklea Green, a …

Read full story

[2] [PDF] A Year of Progress - Maryland https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/meeting_material/2024/mpf%20-%20133747749407952361%20-%20JCMPF%20Meeting%20Material%2010-30.pdf

[3] Comptroller of Maryland - Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MDComptroller/posts/check-out-the-q1-2025-pension-post-from-the-chairs-of-the-maryland-state-retirem/1113263574174287/

[4] It was wonderful to join the Prince George’s County ... - Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BrookeLiermanForMaryland/posts/it-was-wonderful-to-join-the-prince-georges-county-south-county-democratic-club-/1253402899945636/

[5] Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development ... https://www.medamd.com/program-development/maryland-department-of-housing-and-community-development-generates-8-5-billion-in-economic-impact-supports-nearly-31000-jobs-in-fiscal-year-2025/

[6] Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development ... https://www.medamd.com/news/maryland-department-of-housing-and-community-development-secretary-jake-day-honored-with-advocacy-award/

[7] Portia Wu - MarylandSaves https://www.marylandsaves.org/board_and_staff/portia-wu/

[8] Chevy Chase’s Wu Named Secretary of Labor for Moore ... https://www.mymcmedia.org/chevy-chases-wu-named-secretary-of-labor-for-moore-administration/

[9] Md. Gov. Wes Moore’s job performance numbers plunge in latest ... https://foxbaltimore.com/spotlight-on-maryland/md-gov-wes-moores-job-performance-numbers-plunge-in-latest-poll-dga-dismisses-results

[10] Bipartisan Elected, Public Safety, Education Leaders Praise ... https://governor.maryland.gov/news/press/pages/bipartisan-elected,-public-safety,-education-leaders-praise-governor-moore%E2%80%99s-proposed-fy-2027-budget.aspx

[11] Department of Natural Resources - Cabinet - Our Leadership https://governor.maryland.gov/leadership/cabinet/Pages/department-of-natural-resources.aspx

[12] Gov. Moore Announces Support For Chesapeake Bay Legacy Act ... https://thebaynet.com/gov-moore-announces-support-for-chesapeake-bay-legacy-act-to-protect-the-bay-and-uplift-key-maryland-industries/