On Thursday, November 17, 2022 New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas was appointed as the next president of Northern New Mexico College. This continues the trend of not just lawyers being appointed to the campus C-suite but it also continues to reinforce the unique set of skills that government lawyers bring to the job.
Balderas will assume the campus leadership role when his second term as Attorney General ends on December 31, 2022. A graduate of the University of New Mexico School of Law, Balderas has had a distinguished career in public service that includes two terms as the New Mexico State Auditor, more than two years in the New Mexico House of Representatives and service as an Assistant District Attorney for Bernalillo County.
According to the news account, the campus community is extremely happy with the news of the selection and pending final negotiations the Board will formally approve the contract and confirm the Attorney General’s new role.
There are many skills that government lawyers bring to the table as detailed in the article linked above and discussed in Chapter 4 of May it Please the Campus: Lawyers Leading Higher Education.
Balderas’s official appointment will make him the first lawyer president appointed in 2023, and the 65th distinct lawyer president appointed (71 in total as a number had more than one appointment) in the 2020s.