AUGUSTA — Gov.-elect Janet Mills announced Wednesday that Scott Ogden will be communications director for her administration and Lindsay Crete will serve as her press secretary.

Scott Ogden will be communications director for Janet Mills’ administration and Lindsay Crete will be her press secretary.

The two are the second and third executive staffers hired by the incoming Democrat, who announced the hiring of her chief of staff, Jeremy Kennedy, in November.

Ogden worked on Mill’s election campaign and was communications director for her transition team. He has previously worked for the Maine Democratic Party, and for U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe, a Republican, and Angus King, an independent. Ogden is a Monmouth native and a 2010 graduate of Bowdoin College.

Crete is currently the deputy director of state and local campaign communications for EMILY’s List, a Washington, D.C.-based political action committee that largely supports female Democratic candidates. Crete previously served as a communications director for Maine House Democrats. She was also Maine communications director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Crete is a native of Manchester, New Hampshire, and a 2012 graduate of American University.

“The office of the governor is a public trust bestowed upon us by the people of Maine and communicating with them and with the press is the foundation of an open and transparent government,” Mills said in a prepared statement. “Achieving that is my goal, which is why I am excited to welcome Scott and Lindsay to the governor’s office. Both of them are talented and highly-skilled communications professionals who love Maine and are dedicated to improving our state. I could not be more pleased to have them join the team.”

Mills’ communication strategy will include active social media accounts, according to Ogden, who said the incoming governor will have official Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts for sharing information with the public. He said Mills’ staff will also eventually include a social media coordinator to work with the communications team to spearhead messaging on those platforms.

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Mills’ communication style in dealing with Maine’s press corps and the public is also expected to be a dramatic shift from that of outgoing Republican Gov. Paul LePage. While LePage held monthly town-hall style meetings around the state for about two years, issued weekly radio addresses and made regular calls to conservative talk radio hosts, he rarely gave news conferences and had a combative relationship with most members of the news media.

Ogden said Wednesday that Mills has a different view of the media’s role in a free and open government.

“It is the goal of the governor-elect to operate in an accessible and transparent manner, to interact with and be responsive to the press, and to communicate openly with the people of Maine,” Ogden said. “She understands that Maine people have entrusted her with the significant responsibility of governing and, with that, comes the responsibility of communicating to them her vision and plans for the state. She looks forward to working every day to achieve this goal.”

Ogden declined to say if Mills would make her daily calendar public but noted that her transition team in November announced her first out-of-state trip as governor-elect when she traveled to New Orleans for the meeting of the Democratic Governors Association.

“We will make every reasonable effort to keep the people of Maine informed of the governor’s schedule,” Ogden said.

Scott Thistle can be contacted at 791-6330 or at:

sthistle@pressherald.com


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