Mayor-elect Ted Wheeler Hires Top Financial Director and Chief of Staff

It's the first time in Portland City Hall history that a mayor has named an African American man as chief of staff.

Mayor-elect Ted Wheeler named Maurice Henderson as his chief of staff and Tom Rinehart as the next director of Portland's Office of Management and Finance.

Henderson has served as the deputy director at the Portland Bureau of Transportation since 2015. Before that, he worked in government in Washington, D.C. and as a press aide to then-Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia.

He will be the first African-American man to serve the mayor as chief of staff. (Former Mayor Vera Katz, who led Portland from 1993-2004, named an African-American woman, Elise Marshall, as an interim chief of staff.)

"We are fortunate to have a highly skilled manager, policy expert, and proven leader in this role," Wheeler said Thursday in a prepared statement. "I expect a high degree of experience and professionalism from my staff and Maurice Henderson is the right person to help me build and lead the team."

Rinehart is a long-time aide to Wheeler, first at Multnomah County, where Wheeler served as chairman, and then at the state, where Wheeler now serves as treasurer. Rinehart acted as Wheeler's chief of staff in both agencies.

He takes over the Office of Management and Finance, one of Portland's most complicated and important bureaus overseeing human resources, revenue and business services, from Fred Miller, who has long said he would retire when Mayor Charlie Hales leaves office.

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