- Governor Mark Gordon is starting his seventh year in office here in 2025, and we're beginning our new season of "Capitol Outlook" with an interview with the governor, here at the Historic Governor's Mansion in Cheyenne.

He'll talk about some important budget priorities he's submitting as supplemental items to this year's session of the Wyoming Legislature.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

Join us for "Capitol Outlook."

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- Welcome to "Capitol Outlook."

We're here at the Historic Governor's Mansion in Cheyenne with Governor Mark Gordon.

And the governor might not say it himself, but I'll say it for him, (Mark laughs) if he doesn't want to.

He's a little bit under the weather today.

We might be able to hear that in your voice.

But, as always, there's no rule saying you have to be interviewed by Wyoming PBS every year, but you do it, and I thank you for that.

- Well, thank you, Steven.

It's always a joy and an honor to have this opportunity.

I love Wyoming PBS.

- Appreciate that.

We're here at the old governor's mansion.

You don't live here, right?

- No.

- No.

We've interviewed you in the residence where you live now, but you kinda like it here.

I think this is the second interview here that Wyoming PBS has done with you.

What does this old house mean to you?

- Well, I think it kinda reflects the tradition of Wyoming.

I've been thinking about, you know, kind of where the state has come from and where we're headed, and this house holds a lot of those memories.

I think, actually, Governor Herschler was the first to live in the residence.

It might have been Hathaway, 'cause I think it was started under Hathaway, but- - Yeah, I think my understanding is that Governor Herschler might have lived in both houses, here, briefly, and then moved into the new one, so.

- Right.

- That's been 50 years ago now, almost.

It's hard to believe.

I'm glad you've still kept some connection to it and think it's important for people to know where we've come from.

- It's a remarkable building, and I think if people have a chance, they should come and kinda tour it.

- We're here, as the shot might suggest, right before Christmas.

(Mark laughs) By the time this show reaches air, will be just after New Year's, and you'll be into your seventh year as governor then.

So, getting to be an old hand at this by now, huh?

(Mark laughs) - Old, yeah.

(laughs) Yeah.

- Does the job get any easier or would that be the word?

What does experience of a half dozen years help you to do now in your job?

- I think it gives you a sort of a sense of trend and a sense of not to be too worried about things at the moment.

I do think that there's a certain amount of wisdom that maybe comes with that, to sort of let a little bit kind of ride.

It has been the most amazing time to have, to come in, in 2019, with kind of visions about what we could do to make the state better.

We knew that fossil fuels were under attack.

It was a surprise to see COVID.

Nobody expected it.

You know, then all the money that came, couple of things.

And yet, Wyoming has made progress during that whole time.

And it feels like we're in a pretty good place.

- Well, you're a governor with maybe a better ear for the economy than some other governors have been or might be.

What's your sense of, heading into 2025, Wyoming's economy at the moment?

- You know, my anticipation is that we're gonna have a pretty good year coming up.

Long term, we've got the same issues we had in 2019.

The same issues that Governor Mead talked about, the same issues that Governor Freudenthal talked about, the same issues that Governor Geringer.

In fact, when you talk about diversifying our economy, you know, that was part of the conversation when they were writing the Constitution.

And so it continues to be a quest.

I do think that we've made really remarkable progress in that vein.

We've got great manufacturing happening in Sheridan.

We've got the TerraPower plant, nuclear plant down in the southwest, which is gonna revitalize that.

Soda ash will continue to be a really strong component.

We're very hopeful about carbon capture and continued.

You know, I think, Steven, one of the things that we've gotta recognize in this country is that we can't do energy policy in four-year increments.

At this point, it takes several years to get any project across the finish line.

And so we've gotta find some equilibrium.

And Wyoming has really done a good job of being able to say, "Our energy is valuable.

No matter what the political climate is, we can continue to move forward."

- Yeah, I've often thought of that myself as an example of continuity, that from not just one governor's administration to the next, but from one year to the next, one decade to the next.

One of the problems or challenges that any governor has, a big initiative that, important to you, that you fought for.

But two, three, four, five, 10 years later, there's a new governor, there's a new legislature, there might be some new priorities.

So it's not just to come up with ideas, but to come up with an idea that can last, that your successors, both in your office and in the Capitol and the chambers, can see through, continue on.

And you're not shy about proposing new initiatives.

You've got several of these things that you've, starting on now.

Tell us about a couple of those that are important to you, - Right, I think we talked a little bit about energy, so let me start there.

The fact that we have really tried to lead in energy innovation.

You know, I can remember back in the 1980s, wind and solar were big things that we were talking about.

And at that time, Wyoming's economy was kind of flat on its back because of some things that, like the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit and some things like that.

We've continued to move forward, but now we've kind of rejiggered the way our education system works to be able to make sure that we have a workforce that is able and equipped not only to just work in the industry, but also to kind of help lead and innovate in that industry.

So one of my initiatives was the Wyoming Innovation Partnership, which really was an effort to align our community colleges and our university with the industries that are coming into Wyoming, to make sure that we had a workforce that was ready, willing, and able, and well-educated.

And that has sort of caught a gear.

The serendipitous, I think, that we were able to use some federal funding to do that, and it was never intended to be an ongoing expenditure.

If it didn't survive, that was gonna be the industries that would benefit, that would need to be able to keep it going, so.

- You'll do what you can, but at some point, it's up to them.

And it also affects this problem that is referred to as brain drain in Wyoming, that people that get an education here leave too often.

And so what you're talking about, in part, I think, is we'll give 'em a reason to stay here, and also the means, the training, the support that makes them wanna stay here.

- Right, right.

I think that's sort of one of the big challenges.

I mean, Wyoming, for a long time, as you know, has talked about, oh, all our kids are leaving.

And, you know, the golden handcuffs don't really work.

I think it's actually Wyoming's such a beautiful state that I don't have any trouble with our kids leaving, as long as they come back, and hopefully bring their families with them.

And then we wanna make sure that there's an economy that can support them when they get here.

So to your point, I think a lot of the good ideas that we've had over the last several years about education have really turned into a great way to educate the workforce for our neighboring states.

That's one reason why we wanted to connect with the industries moving here.

Give you an example.

LCCC, just down the road here, has a wonderful program on imaging for medicine, from, you know, all sorts of technologies.

And a lotta the students are coming from Colorado, and a lot of our students are going to Colorado.

It is a beachhead, maybe, to be able to start to think about how do we bring some of that industry more in Wyoming?

How do we make sure that we have more CNAs and nurses that stay here?

Because, and we all know this, too, our population is aging.

That means we're gonna need to have more medicine.

- You mentioned the Natrium nuclear power project.

That's where I happened to see you last.

You spoke there.

I see you, and I'm not gonna say walking the tightrope, but always trying to find the balance between what we refer to as legacy energy industries in Wyoming, but also making sure that Wyoming, which you're determined is going to become an energy leader, no matter what the new energy technology is.

And you addressed both of those things when you spoke at the groundbreaking of the plant in Kemmerer.

And I think the remark you made was, "If it's happening in energy, we want to have it happening in Wyoming."

So that's gonna be an exciting thing to watch in Kemmerer and around the state, isn't it?

- It's been interesting because if you remember Jeffrey City, which I know you do, you know, that was a boom in energy.

We had a lotta nuclear plants in the country that were being built.

We were providing the fuel for that.

Technologies get better over time.

The TerraPower represents, really, a sort of a step change, I believe, in how we generate nuclear power.

So it's sort of both.

- Yeah, definitely.

- It's kind of part of a legacy of Wyoming, but it's also part of the future.

And what really is nice, and I think this is what's sort of missed in the long conversation about energy, many of our fossil fuel generating facilities are really reaching their end of life.

And it's not because, you know, of environment, ESG investing, or anything else.

It's really just the fact of the matter of stuff wears out.

- The plant is getting old now.

- Yeah, so, you know, somebody's gonna have to invest in rebuilding that stuff.

And what's exciting about this is it offers an opportunity.

For me, what it offers is an opportunity not only to have a generating plant here in Wyoming, but a technology that's built on modular.

So, you know, in other words, repeatable manufacturing, and we can get that manufacturing here.

So not only the energy that we've always wanted to export, but also the manufacturing that we've been working on for years to try to bring to Wyoming.

- Yeah.

And even if the uranium mines were to reopen and start producing at the level that they used to, it wouldn't be with 500 miners on scrapers anymore.

- Not anymore.

- The technology of that is different, but it still can happen in Wyoming, and that's what you were talking about then.

You are not a legislator, but you have a big, you work with legislators all the time.

You have a role to play in the legislative process.

And one of those that you've had to play here recently, and have played recently, is submitting a list of budget priorities from you that aren't part of the biennial budget, but are what we call the supplemental budget.

And during the odd-numbered years of the legislature, which we're coming into now, that's when those get considered.

Your job, as I envision, is a combination, you've hit on this a little bit already, of both your agenda and then things that you just don't see coming, but you still have to deal with.

And one of those last year had to do with wildfires, and you've made that a supplemental budget priority for this coming session, haven't you?

- Yeah, well, we had to.

(laughs) - There's just- - During my time in office, you know, and 2019 was one of those supplemental years and that was my first year in office.

Worked a little bit with the budget that Governor Mead had put forward.

2020 was our first budget year.

We went into it really excited, had a great, solid budget.

COVID hit.

- Here comes COVID.

- Right at the end.

And, then, you know, nothing really stayed the same over the next several years.

We had so much money coming, or no money coming.

And so last year was our first effort at putting together kind of two parts of a budget.

One, a budget that reflected sort of a Wyoming steady state going forward.

What are the things that we're gonna do?

How do we build that?

And, two, kind of putting to rest all the final points of that federal funding that had come in.

So this supplemental caught us a little bit by surprise because two months into the new budget year, we started in July 1st, we had expended all of our fire funds.

The second and third biggest fires in the state's history, probably the worst year since 1988.

And not only did we expend all the funds that we have for firefighting, our contingency funds, Homeland Security's contingency funds, and into the borrowing authority.

So we need to replace all of that.

And then on top of that, the devastation is still there.

Watersheds in Sheridan and Ranchester, Dayton, are devastated.

So trying to figure out how to make those stable so that they don't end up with problems this coming year.

- Those are (indistinct) issues.

- Of fire prevention, firefighting, and then this mitigation as well.

- Absolutely.

- These communities are hard-hit by this.

They are awestruck, gobsmacked by what's (Mark laughs) happened to them, and they don't have the resources to deal with it unless someone's helping from above.

- No, that's exactly correct.

And it was wonderful this year that we had the capacity we did, because we had a lot of aerial resources that could kind of attack initially.

And some of the flights, what we call the single-engine air tankers, I think they flew continuously most of the summer.

- Yeah.

You just never know, and- - You never do.

- Same thing could happen this year.

Time's gonna tell.

These natural resource issues are always a big part of everything that happens in Wyoming, your office as well.

We interviewed the outgoing director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department right at the end of, nearing the end of his term last fall.

And he said, in his opinion, one of the biggest mistakes in the natural resource realm was that the grizzly bears that were reintroduced into, essentially, into Wyoming and nearby areas, now 30 years ago, still were not fully under state management.

He thought that was a, as he said, just a mistake.

He wasn't ranting and raving about it, but thought that, by far, the best option for the bears.

You've expressed your opinions in similar lines now.

Where does the grizzly bear stand in your administration at the moment?

What are you trying to see happen?

- Well, I believe strongly that when a population is recovered, it should be delisted.

And- - By every measure, am I right?

Forgive me, but by the measures that were set up and established back in the '90s, that's what's happened.

The bears have met those standards.

- Yeah, they actually, the bear population has met those standards, which have moved a little bit over time, several times, which is why they were delisted once in the Obama administration, once in the Trump administration.

And I'm very hopeful that we'll be able to do it again.

I think, to some degree, I worry a little bit about the iconography that happens with a bear that, you know, died this year, 399, who was, you know, had a Facebook page and was globally recognized.

- We did a "Wyoming Chronicle" show about that bear- - Yeah, you did.

- Years ago.

- You did.

But that sort of interferes with the natural process.

And I think one of the issues that we've got to reckon with is how do we make sure that we can keep our natural systems whole and functioning properly?

And when you have an apex predator, like the grizzly bear, that really isn't afraid of anything, and reportedly, you know, looks at gunshots or hears gunshots and thinks of that as a dinner bell, and then starts migrating towards wherever the hunter was, you know, this now becomes an issue that changes the process.

And bear 399, for example, you know, a couple years ago, was down on a golf course below Jackson.

There are pictures of her walking through town in the middle of the night.

Much as anybody would like to say this is a wild animal, that clearly is not wild behavior.

That is domesticated.

- We saw the director of the State Department of Health, Stefan Johansson, recently at tandem mental health conferences in Casper, the Mental Health Conference, the Suicide Prevention Conference.

He was talking about that.

And he was very complimentary of you and emphasized that mental health in Wyoming is an important issue, and it continues to be a very important one for you.

And I'm presuming that will continue to be true for the next couple years here.

- We have begun to move the needle.

It is astounding how many people in Wyoming have been touched by issues of mental health, most compelling, perhaps, suicide.

And we can do a better job.

It's something the legislature's worked at.

Community mental health centers tried to do it all, but they've now, under the reorg, sort of been tasked with addressing certain issues.

We're trying to figure out how to sort of bootstrap workforce, part of the WIP initiative.

But it's also just building awareness 'cause, you know, Wyoming is one of these places where we celebrate the independent, you know, kind of tough cowboy veneer.

But I can speak from very good friends that have really wrestled with this.

Coming back from Vietnam and being kidded about, you know, post-traumatic stress.

We've happily come a long distance from that.

But when you look at every population in Wyoming, whether it be school kids, whether it be veterans, whether it be seniors, whether it be farmers, whether it be energy workers, it's just, it's an issue.

And it's not a stigma.

It's just let's work on it, and work across all aspects.

So not only professional, but also faith organizations.

- He echoed what you've just said as well, that progress is now being made.

And he was optimistic then.

And going back to this idea that an administration ends, but the good policies of that administration don't need to end at that moment just because there's a new governor or a new director coming in.

Progress in mental health is not something we ever wanna go backwards on.

And so with the innovations you described and the progress that you can demonstrate, I think that it's promising into the future now.

- Well, yeah, I hope so.

And it is interesting 'cause I think a lotta people talk about what's your legacy, governor- - That's next year's interview.

(Mark laughs) - Well, there we are, but, (Steve laughs) you know, my point is, I think this job is about meeting people's needs and addressing the issues that come.

Mental health is one of those issues.

And so to your point, I would hope that eventually we'd work ourselves out of this as a principal issue.

But the fact we have so many people that are dealing with this, I think is gonna be something that whatever administration comes next will have to deal with.

- As long as the population's dealing with it, the governor needs to deal with it, too.

- Exactly.

- And eight years ago when you were running, I don't remember if you were thinking, boy, mental health in Wyoming is gonna have to be a big priority of mine, but as it's turned out, that's what's happened.

- Yeah, I don't, I've been engaged with mental health for a very long time, both through the schools and some others, but I never thought of it as a, you know, a key issue, but it's certainly become that.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

You exist in the political realm, (Mark laughs) and there was an election in 2024 that continued a trend that is changing the face of the Wyoming Legislature.

A lot of more senior members are out, newer members in, and political ramifications about that.

And a lot of talk about particular ideology and so forth.

One of the things you do every year is testify, talking about your supplemental budget priorities.

And, of course, some of those legislators that you were speaking to then aren't gonna be in the legislature by the time this show is airing, or very shortly thereafter.

Some of them will be.

Committee chairs will have changed.

And, who knows, priorities, philosophies might be changing as well.

What was your impression of the election and how are you viewing the coming session?

- Well, there were two elections.

- Yes.

- The first was the primary, which is where a lot of- - That's where the action is.

- Change happened.

And as I reflect on that, you know, I think about the issues that were really pushed.

You know, was Donald Trump gonna be on the ballot?

Not an issue that was in Wyoming, but, you know, one that was in an adjacent state.

There were issues about immigration and other things that were all very much a topic.

And we've spent most of this conversation talking about how do we move the state forward, the industries, the development, but that wasn't really what that election was about.

And there were, I think it was something around 27% of the people participated in the primary.

It's summer, end of summer, actually.

And, you know, so I think it's hard.

I know people think that there was a big mandate at that point, but it's hard to sort of think from 27% of the people that that has a huge mandate, especially when the general election was, you know, over 60%.

So people really were engaged in the national election.

But as you say, the Joint Appropriations Committee is entirely new, except for one Democrat who has served on it before, on the House side.

On the Senate side, some new faces as well.

And people have asked me, "So, you know, what do you think?

You know, was this a sea change?"

I do think it was a sea change, but I'm not disheartened.

Let me put it that way.

Because I think everyone who runs for office runs because they wanna make things better.

And a lotta times, from the outside, we've talked a little bit about experience, but a lotta times from the outside, there's simple remedies.

You know, I just go in and change this, and it'll happen.

We found out early in COVID, when we were trying to save money, 1/3 of our revenue had disappeared.

We were trying to figure out any way we could cut expenses.

So we thought, you know what?

We'll take all the rest areas within five miles of a town, and we'll either let the town run it themselves, or we'll close it, because they'll go into, the folks that would use it would go into town.

And, boy, I'll tell you, that was a shocker.

So I think coming here, having the chance to learn and recognizing that things are a little more complicated, that's just an education process.

And I think it's gonna be, actually, I think this legislature may have some good ideas and I'm looking forward to working with them.

- Governor, a pleasure, as always.

And I will repeat my appreciation to you for making yourself available to us.

And I'll just mention that, this is the holiday season, a joyous time, we hope, for everybody, but particularly for you, there's a new grandchild in your life.

- We have a new granddaughter that showed up just last week.

- And this makes how many?

- Absolutely beautiful young lady.

- Well, that's fantastic.

- And all of her cousins are excited.

All of the family's excited.

Thank you for- - Five grandchildren now.

- That is five.

Yeah.

- Congratulations.

- A little bit surprising, but here it is.

- Here it is.

Time passes.

And we arrive where we arrive, don't we?

A great pleasure to see you again.

We won't shake hands because you're thinking about my health today.

And I wish you the best in your recovery and in the year ahead.

Thanks for being with us on- - Thank you.

- "Capitol Outlook."

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