Taking control of Kentucky State Government operations requires bold action from knowledgeable people. it is not a game for amateurs as Fletcher found out. With some 35,000 plus state workers, the task of reorganizing them and their cabinets into smooth functional units is, at best, an art form as well as science. 

The task of quickly gaining control  for Beshear and his team is about how fast they can move to replace 258 senior positions (commissioner and deputy commissioner levels) plus some 231 Agency and Division Directors.

At first move, Governor Beshear has assembled a good team for this effort of retooling state government for the 21st Century. Below are our short profiles of 15 individuals who, for now, make up Beshear’s Inner Circle.  These people will be the ones to make sure that the Beshear Administration is a turning point in Kentucky’s history.

In addition to these fifteen, Tom Preston will stay on through the early months of designing the budget and laying the foundation for Beshear’s administration.

They will be the ones that oversee the transformation of a poor state into, hopefully, a better state that is able to weather the coming economic storms of 2008 through 2010.

We wish them all the best in this noble effort.