Just as his appointments to the WNC GROW Advisory Committee bring together people from throughout the WNC region, Governor Josh Stein has named people to head up each executive department who reflect his values and the needs of residents and businesses across the state.
The department heads also reflect the state’s diversity. His choices include the first Hispanic, first Native American, and first person of Indian heritage to serve in the cabinet, as well as three African Americans. Six are women, and seven are men.
NC Cabinet Officers
(in alphabetical order)
Eddie Buffaloe, Department of Public Safety. Buffaloe will oversee law enforcement, juvenile justice, emergency response and recovery, and homeland security efforts. He has served as head of DPS since 2021, when he was appointed to the post by outgoing Governor Roy Cooper. He previously worked in Elizabeth City government, a sheriff’s office, as a corrections officer and law enforcement instructor. He was a member of the NC National Guard for a decade.
Pam Cashwell, appointed head of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, has served as Secretary of the NC Department of Administration since 2021. She has previously served in the state’s Dept. of Public Safety, as Assistant Director at the state Ethics Commission, and as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division and the Office of Justice Programs at the US Department of Justice and the US Attorneys Office in the Eastern District of Virginia. Her heritage includes the Coharie and Lumbee tribes of North Carolina, making her the first woman of Native American background to head a cabinet department in North Carolina. Cashwell earned her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
Leslie Cooley Dismukes will lead the Department of Adult Correction. Currently the Criminal Bureau Chief at the North Carolina Department of Justice, she…
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