Agency Histories

Michael Okerlund Leavitt comes from a family successful in business. He followed that tradition and added a varied political career to it. Leavitt was born in Cedar City, UT on February 11, 1951. He got a business degree from the Southern Utah University, then joined the Leavitt Group which is an insurance brokerage firm started by his father. By 1984 he was the President and CEO of the group. At some point he married Jacalyn Smith. When he entered politics, he did so as a republican and said his goals--no matter what position he was elected to--would be to leave things better than he found them, plant seeds for the next generation, and to give it his all. Leavitt became Governor of Utah on January 4, 1993. He resigned early on November 5, 2003 to accept the appointment to Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 2003-2005. While Governor of Utah, he was the co-founder of Western Governors University 1997. He supported Healthprint, an incremental approach to improving health care. He also passed several environmental protection and improvement bills. When he was part of the EPA, he supported the Clean Air Diesel Rule. He moved on from the EPA to become Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) 2005-2009. He was also on the Homeland Security Advisory Council. In August 2007 Leavitt became the first cabinet-level blogger in the US. After leaving the HHS, he founded Leavitt Partners, a health care and food safety consulting firm. He published "Finding Allies, Building Alliances" in September 2013. As of 2023, Leavitt is still living.