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Bill Owens is looking mighty good:

Career:

Prior to his election as governor, Bill Owens worked for 20 years in the private sector with the consulting staff at Deloitte and Touche, with the Gates Corporation and as director of the Colorado Petroleum Association. His undergraduate degree is from Stephen F. Austin State University, and he earned a master's degree in public affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School at the University of Texas, where he was awarded a two year fellowship. In November 2000, Owens was elected to serve as an executive committee member of the Republican Governors Association. In November 2001, Owens was elected vice chairman of the Republican Governors Association. After serving his term as vice chairman, he currently serves as Chairman of the RGA after being elected to the post in November 2002.

Election History:

Governor Owens was sworn in as Colorado's 40th governor on January 12, 1999, the first Republican to be elected Colorado governor in 28 years. Owens also served in the Colorado House of Representatives and the Colorado Senate, as well as for four years as state treasurer. Owens was the first Republican to be elected treasurer in 20 years. He was re-elected as governor in November 2002, defeating his Democratic opponent with 63 percent of the vote.

Accomplishments:

In his first two years in office, Governor Owens fulfilled all three of the pledges he made during his 1998 campaign. Owens pushed through the legislature the largest tax relief package in Colorado's history, a total of $1 billion in tax cuts over three years. This includes a cut in the income tax rate, a lowering of the sales tax rate, elimination of the marriage penalty and a reduction in the capital gains tax.

Through five consecutive years of full state funding for public education, Governor Owens has kept his promise to institute sweeping school reform in Colorado. He also has created an education accountability system, which includes detailed online school report cards. His accountability system has been praised as among the best in the nation by Education Week magazine and The Heritage Foundation.

Governor Owens has also remained committed to transforming Colorado's transportation system, which had been neglected for nearly a quarter century. Through innovative policies, he accelerated road and mass transit projects that would have taken half a century to complete into projects that will now be done in a decade. He pushed for and signed into law the largest state commitment to transportation which will invest $15 billion over the next two decades.

Owens also championed efforts to strengthen Colorado's families. These include focusing resources on reducing youth violence, fostering partnerships with faith-based organizations to offer social services and reforming the Children's Health Insurance Program to reduce enrollment barriers for low-income children.

In 2003, Owens signed into law school choice legislation that makes Colorado only the second state to do so and the first since voucher programs were declared constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. The program will give students who qualify a better education while at the same time forcing public schools to improve. Colorado's education reform agenda, championed by Owens, was praised by U.S. Department of Education Secretary Rod Paige as the "envy of the nation."