Sen. Lisa Reynolds, D-Portland, was sworn into office by Gov. Tina Kotek during the Oregon Leadership Summit on Monday. A pediatrician, Reynolds was re-elected last month as a state representative but resigned to succeed Elizabeth Steiner, D-Portland, in Senate District 17. Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, has appointed Reynolds to the Senate Interim Rules and Executive Appointments Committee.

Wagner and House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, appointed the Joint Interim Special Committee on Wildfire Funding: Sen. Kate Lieber and Rep. Tawna Sanchez, both D-Portland, co-chairs; Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena; and Rep. Bobby Levy, R-Echo.

Col. David J. Christensen succeeded retiring Col. Michael B. Kosderka as commander of the Oregon Air National Guard’s 142nd Wing, based at the Portland Air National Guard Base. The nearly 1,400 personnel protect U.S. airspace from Northern California to the Canadian border.

State Treasurer Tobias Read, who will be sworn in Jan. 6 as secretary of state, appointed several top staff:

— Michael Kaplan, deputy secretary of state. The deputy state treasurer, he previously was director of the Department of Energy and worked in the Ted Kulongoski and John Kitzhaber gubernatorial administrations.

— Dmitri Palmateer, chief of staff. Read’s chief of staff at the State Treasury, he also worked for Govs. Kitzhaber and Kate Brown and for U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley.

— Tess Seger, deputy chief of staff for communications. She is communications director in the Senate Majority Office.

— Ricardo Lujan Valerio, deputy chief of staff for government relations. He is Western Oregon University’s director of government relations.

— Mary Krehbiel, chief of strategic initiatives. She is organizational risk and resiliency manager at the State Treasury.

— Grace Roth will fill an undetermined role. She currently is director of executive servicers at the State Treasury.

Kassie Keller was promoted to public affairs director for the Oregon State Fire Marshal.

Stacy Michaelson joins the Oregon School Boards Association on Jan. 6 as director of government relations and communications. She has been the Multnomah Education Service District’s government affairs administrator since 2017.

Claire Wilson moved to the League of Oregon Cities as training coordinator after five years with Washington County.

Nicole Rivera will serve as executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Oregon, which has succeeded Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon.

The state Democratic central committee elected three new members to the Democratic National Committee: Diane Grover, Lake Oswego; Kien Truong, Portland; and Steph Newton-Azorr, Albany.

Andy Van Pelt formed Van Pelt & Co., having left the Hospital Association of Oregon where he was the longtime executive vice president and head of Apprise Health Insights.

Lance J. Randall departed as executive director of the Black Business Association of Oregon, as was first reported by the Portland Business Journal. The interim leader is Nate McCoy, executive director of the National Association of Minority Contractors – Oregon.

Mark Blegen, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Carroll University in Wisconsin, will become president of Linfield University on July 1, 2025. He will replace former OSU-Cascades Vice President Becky Johnson, who has been Linfield’s interim president following the resignation of Miles K. Davis.