About Bill Bradbury

Growing up

Former Secretary of State Bill Bradbury was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1949, the third child of William and Lorraine Bradbury. He grew up in Chicago and Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Bill’s oldest sister Joan is a retired elementary school teacher, and his other sister Kathy is a Senior Economist and Policy Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Bill’s father was an associate professor of sociology at the University of Chicago. In September, 1958, after a summer spent in Seattle where Bill’s father studied Chinese on a fellowship, Bill’s mother and father were killed in an automobile accident in Montana. Bill and his sister Kathy were injured, but survived. Bill’s older sister Joan was not in the car, but overseas as part of a student exchange program.

The Bradbury House on the University of Chicago campus is named in honor of Bill’s father.

Bill lived with his aunt and uncle in Swarthmore for several years, but moved back to Chicago in his teens to live with his sister Joan, whose political activism had become a primary influence on his life.

At age eleven, Bill went door to door passing out campaign literature for John F. Kennedy. And in August of 1963, Joan took Bill to the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom to hear Martin Luther King deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech.

Bill graduated from the University of Chicago Laboratory High School in 1967, where he was active in theater and photography, then attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Coming to Oregon

Bill soon came west to pursue a career as a television news reporter in San Francisco. He arrived in Bandon, Oregon, in 1971, to buy and operate a seafood restaurant, and was immediately struck by the beauty of the state and its opportunities. He returned to broadcast journalism, working as a reporter and producer in Bandon, Eugene, and Portland. From 1978 to 1995, Bill wrote for and produced Local Color, a video service specializing in coverage of rural areas of Oregon.

Prior to his public career, Bill became involved in the effort to protect the 4,400-acre South Slough estuary on the southern Oregon Coast, which was established in 1974 as the nation’s first estuarine research reserve.

Service in the Legislature

Bill Bradbury was first elected as a State Representative from Curry and southern Coos County in 1980. He served in the Oregon legislature for 14 years. He was elected a State Senator in 1984, and elected as Senate Majority Leader in 1986. Bill was then elected Senate President in 1993.

As a legislator, Bill pursued the complementary Oregon values of environmental protection and economic development. He led successful efforts to establish Small Business Development Centers at Community Colleges, to develop the Salmon and Trout Enhancement Program (STEP), and to put together a relief package for displaced timber workers. He also helped pass measures that prevented offshore oil drilling and planned for state-owned ocean resources, and that enacted the Oregon Watershed Health Program.

From 1995 to 1999, Bill served as Executive Director of For the Sake of the Salmon – a non-profit organization dedicated to finding common ground between business owners and environmental groups for salmon restoration in Oregon, Washington, and California.

Oregon’s Secretary of State

Bill Bradbury was appointed Oregon’s Secretary of State in November 1999. He was elected to the office in 2000, and re-elected in 2004, serving for nine years. As the state’s second-highest-ranking constitutional officer, Bill was auditor of public accounts, chief elections officer, and manager of the state’s official legislative and executive records. He also served on the State Land Board, which oversees management of state-owned lands.

As Secretary of State, Bill protected the integrity of Oregon’s elections process and increased voter participation, implementing Oregon’s vote by mail system approved by voters in 1998. He also increased the transparency of financial transactions in our elections by implementing an electronic reporting system for campaign contributions and spending.

Bill also took the lead in coordinating state agencies to create an online business registry in Oregon. Oregon is now a leader in e-commerce, where citizens can use the “Business Wizard” to find the licenses and permits they need and apply for them online.

Fighting Global Climate Change

In recent years, Bill Bradbury has become a nationally recognized leader in the fight against global climate change. He was appointed by Governor Kulongoski to chair the Oregon Sustainability Board, and has also been appointed to sit as a member of Oregon’s Global Warming Advisory Commission. Bill was one of the first 50 participants in Vice President Al Gore’s Climate Change training sessions and has given more than 200 Climate Change in Oregon presentations.

Personal Life

Bill has been married to Katy Eymann of Marcola since 1986. Katy is the daughter of Richard O. “Dick” Eymann, who served as Oregon’s Speaker of the House during the 1973 legislative session that passed Senate Bill 100 establishing Oregon’s land use planning system. Katy is an attorney who presently works as General Counsel for Climate Clean. Bill and Katy own homes in Bandon and Salem.

Bill has two daughters from a prior marriage: Abby and Zoë. Abby is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont, and Zoë is a graduate of Stanford University in California. Both are sustainable farmers on Oregon’s south coast.