RALEIGH — Gov. Roy Cooper has chosen a vocal proponent of government film subsidies and historic tax credits for secretary of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Cooper’s pick, Susi Hamilton, a Democrat, served in the state House representing New Hanover County.
During her tenure in the state House, Hamilton pushed for reinstatement of the preservation tax credit and tax credits for the film industry.
“I was the assistant for the National Register coordinator for the State Historic Preservation office,” Hamilton said. “I am looking forward to a coordinated effort with our legislature to look at projects in all 100 counties in our state and to add economic development activities in all 100 counties of our state through the preservation of our cultural resources, our natural resources, and finding a way to blend those two things together for our economy.”
Hamilton worked as a planner and historic preservation and downtown development director for the city of Washington, N.C., from 1997-98. She is a licensed commercial real estate agent and is president and CEO of Hamilton Planning, an urban planning, marketing, government relations, construction management, and business development services consulting firm.
Cooper, a Democrat, selected Reid Wilson as Hamilton’s chief deputy secretary.
Wilson is executive director of the Conservation Trust for North Carolina. He was senior vice president of M&R Strategic Services, which provided consulting services to state and national conservation organizations.
Wilson worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1993 to 2000. He was the EPA’s chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, and public liaison director. He was political director of the Sierra Club, where he directed the club’s activities on behalf of the Clinton-Gore campaign and managed candidate endorsements and PAC contributions to U.S. House and Senate candidates.
He was an environmental lobbyist for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a political liaison for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Iowa campaign director of Gore for President, and a fund-raiser for Democratic Party organizations.
“This is the department that gets to work on things that people in North Carolina love, that makes our state so special and cherished, our parks, our museums, our history, our culture, our food, our music,” Wilson said.
Cooper has now selected all but two of his Cabinet posts. The revenue and information technology secretaries have yet to be selected.