CHRISTINE T. WHITMAN was born in New York City and was raised in Oldwick in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. She earned a bachelor’s degree in government in 1968 from Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. She is a former director of the Somerset County Board of Freeholders and a former president of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. She was elected governor in 1993, becoming the first woman to hold that office in New Jersey. In her tenure as governor, voters approved her proposal to provide state funds to reach her goal of permanently preserving one million acres of open space and farmland by 2010. She signed several tough anticrime measures, including Megan’s Law and “Three Strikes and You’re In.” Whitman resigned as governor when she was named EPA Administrator by President George W. Bush in January 2001.