Gov. Kate Brown appointed Lauren Henderson as acting director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture until the next governor makes a permanent appointment. He joined the department in 1999 and became deputy director a year ago.

Sept. 30 was the last day for Agriculture director Alexis Taylor, whom President Joe Biden nominated as undersecretary of agriculture for trade and foreign agricultural affairs. She awaits confirmation by the U.S. Senate following her Sept. 22 confirmation hearing before the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Brown will appoint replacements for Oregon Supreme Court Justice Thomas Balmer, who this week announced he would retire Dec. 31, and Jackson County Circuit Judge Lorenzo A. Mejia, who also is retiring then.

Angela Plowhead of Salem is the newly elected vice chairwoman of the Oregon Republican Party. A psychologist in private practice, she finished fourth in the May Republican primary for Oregon’s new 6th Congressional District seat.

Tiffany Bennett is government relations liaison for the Interstate Bridge Replacement. She was policy and budget director in the Oregon House Republican Office and previously chief of staff for Sen. Lynn Findley, R-Vale. She serves as a liaison for the Oregon Department of Transportation Director’s Office, the IBR program and the Urban Mobility Office.

Ray Bottenberg officially is ODOT’s state bridge engineer and Bridge Section manager. He had been the interim state bridge engineer since October 2020. He began his career with ODOT in 1999 as a traffic control designer and moved to the Bridge Section in 2001 as a structural design engineer. Former State Bridge Engineer Ray Mabey now works exclusively on the Interstate Bridge project.

Russ Casler has been named ODOT budget manager. He has held several managerial positions with the department, including at Motor Carrier and DMV.