PRESIDENT BIDEN on Thursday appointed Juana Matias, the chief operating officer of MassINC, as the New England regional administrator for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Matias is replacing David Tille, who was appointed the New England regional administrator in 2017 by former president Donald Trump and vacated the position early last year.
The appointment was announced by the White House as part of a series of hires at several federal agencies. “Consistent with the president’s commitment to building an administration that looks like America, these regional appointees represent the diversity of America and the communities they serve,” the press release said.
Matias, who was born in the Dominican Republic and moved with her family to the United States when she was five, spent the last three years at MassINC, a nonprofit focused on research, journalism, and polling. MassINC oversees the Gateway Cities Innovation Institute and CommonWealth magazine, and owns a share of the MassINC Polling Group.
Prior to joining MassINC, Matias served in the Legislature as a state representative from Lawrence (2017-2019) and used that position as a springboard to run for an open congressional seat in 2018 in the Third District. She came in fourth in a crowded 10-way Democratic primary, which was won by Lori Trahan, who went on to win the general election.
Matias’s departure means the top two positions at MassINC are in flux. Lauren Louison Grogan, the chief executive officer of MassINC, recently announced she would be stepping down in June. Matias had been expected to replace her, but now she is leaving in April.
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Editor, CommonWealth
About Bruce Mohl
Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.
About Bruce Mohl
Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.
Maeve Duggan, a research director at the MassINC Polling Group, will replace Matias as COO on an interim basis. Greg Torres, the chairman of the MassINC board, is co-leading with Michael Hunter of Trinity Financial a search team to find a replacement for Grogan.
“There was just no better team than Lauren and Juana,” said Torres. “The board always believed it was a succession plan in the works, but now that Juana has been offered a job with the Biden administration we need to shift gears and accelerate our efforts to replace Lauren.”
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