Governor Reappoints Fortner; Appoints Two New Regents

Jack Fort­ner
reap­pointed to UNM Board of Regents.

New Mex­ico Gov­er­nor Susana Mar­tinez has appointed Farm­ing­ton attor­ney Jack Fort­ner to his third term on the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Board of Regents. The Gov­er­nor also announced the appoint­ment of Lt. Gen­eral Bradley C. Hos­mer (USAF, ret.) of Cedar Crest to the board and named under­grad­u­ate Jacob Well­man as stu­dent regent.

“Jack Fort­ner has been a superb regent who has shown over the years how com­mit­ted he is to the suc­cess of our stu­dents,” said UNM Pres­i­dent David J. Schmidly. “He brings a great per­spec­tive from the cit­i­zens of New Mex­ico on what this state needs from its flag­ship university.”

Fort­ner, a for­mer San Juan County com­mis­sioner, earned his BA in polit­i­cal sci­ence from UNM and his law degree from the Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan. A UNM Regent since 1999, Fort­ner was the long­time chair of the Health Sci­ences Committee.

“Regent Fort­ner has been a ded­i­cated leader and advo­cate for the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico, all of our stu­dents and for the Health Sci­ences Cen­ter for many years,” said Paul Roth, MD, Chan­cel­lor, Health Sci­ences Cen­ter. “I per­son­ally want to thank him for his ser­vice as Chair of the Regent’s Health Sci­ences Com­mit­tee and for his will­ing­ness to help us meet and advance our core mis­sions. I am extremely pleased that Gov­er­nor Mar­tinez has reap­pointed Regent Fort­ner. This is another sign that Gov­er­nor Mar­tinez is com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing excel­lence in higher edu­ca­tion in New Mexico.”

Fort­ner has also served on the Academic/Student Affairs and Research com­mit­tee of the Regents. “UNM fac­ulty have worked con­struc­tively with Regent Fort­ner dur­ing his years on the board,” said Fac­ulty Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Richard Wood. “We believe he has served the uni­ver­sity well and look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing our col­le­gial rela­tion­ship with him.”

Lt. Gen­eral Hos­mer served as the 12th Super­in­ten­dent of the United States Air Force Acad­emy from 1991 – 1994, the first acad­emy grad­u­ate to return as super­in­ten­dent. He was the top grad­u­ate of the Academy’s first grad­u­at­ing class and a Rhodes Scholar with a master’s degree in inter­na­tional rela­tions from Oxford Uni­ver­sity. Since June 2009 he has been a mem­ber of East Moun­tain High School Gov­ern­ing Coun­cil. Lt Gen Hos­mer com­manded the 479th Tac­ti­cal Train­ing Wing at Hol­lo­man Air Force Base. He is a grad­u­ate of the USAF, the Naval Com­mand and Staff Col­lege, and the National War College.

Jacob Well­man, an under­grad­u­ate pur­su­ing his B.A. in Polit­i­cal Sci­ence, serves on the President’s Strate­gic Advi­sory Team and as under­grad­u­ate rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Stu­dent Fee Review Board. He’s a for­mer ASUNM Attor­ney Gen­eral and Chief of Staff and cur­rently holds the posi­tion of lead­er­ship intern at Think New Mexico.

“Jake is a bright and tal­ented stu­dent who rep­re­sents the very best of who we are here at UNM,” said Pres­i­dent Schmidly. “His ded­i­ca­tion to rep­re­sent­ing and advanc­ing the inter­ests of the UNM com­mu­nity has pro­vided him with a strong work­ing knowl­edge of our uni­ver­sity and his demon­strated lead­er­ship and expe­ri­ences will enable him to serve our com­mu­nity well.”
The Governor’s appoint­ments must be con­firmed by the New Mex­ico Senate