ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland Gov. Wes Moore named Paul Monteiro on Monday to lead a new service-year program for high school graduates, a program that is a priority of the new governor’s first year in office.
Monteiro, who has been nominated to serve as the secretary of the new Department of Service and Civic Innovation, is a former national director of AmeriCorps Volunteers in Service to America.
He recently served as director of the Community Relations Service in the U.S. Justice Department, where he oversaw the office’s work supporting communities to reduce tensions, as well as to prevent and respond to bias incidents and hate crimes.
Moore, a Democrat, has prioritized creating a voluntary service-year program for high school graduates that he describes as a first of its kind in the nation. It will be a paid program to better prepare recent graduates for future jobs.
“The mission of the office is to consolidate and elevate the agencies of state government that support service opportunities here in the state of Maryland,” the governor said at a news conference where he introduced Monteiro.
Monteiro, who also worked as chief of staff to the president of Howard University, said the new program “will be a place that recognizes and celebrates the many ways Marylanders are already serving, even as it builds new pathways for us to do even more.”
“Our aim is to build an authentic, substantive and challenging experience for our graduates to obtain invaluable hard and soft skills, financial support to pursue higher education, even as they use the year to discern where their interests and talents are best developed and hopefully find a sense of greater purpose for their lives,” Monteiro said.
Monteiro served on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, as the deputy director for religious affairs. He joined the White House staff as an associate director in the Office of Public Engagement. In that role, he worked on President Obama’s Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Initiative, the My Brother’s Keeper mentorship program for young men, and as a liaison to religious and secular belief communities as well as ethnic groups.
Moore said he was moving quickly to submit his nominee to the state Senate, which will need to confirm him. The Maryland General Assembly is scheduled to adjourn next Monday.
The governor hopes to get 200 high school graduates this year into the new program, which could have as many as 2,000 participants in four years.
The General Assembly has advanced legislation to create the program. Lawmakers have made changes to the governor’s initial proposal to merge it within the existing structure of the Maryland Corps Program.
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