bvc_june2017

54 55 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES VIRGIN ISLANDS zenship from Congressional statute. On January 5, 2015, Kenneth E. Mapp was sworn in as the eighth elected Gov- ernor of the United States Virgin Islands. With his running mate, Osbert E. Potter, the team earned nearly 67 percent of the popular vote in a run-off election held on November 18, 2014. Mapp was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1955, and moved to St. Croix in 1961. Soon after graduating from St. Croix Central High School, he was accepted for training by the New York City Police Department, and went on to serve in Brooklyn’s 83rd precinct. He later became an officer of the Vir- gin Islands Police Department, whose members elected him president of their Police Benevolent Association. Before serving as Governor, Mapp was a Virgin Islands Senator, predominantly sitting on committees of finance and economic development. He also served as an Assistant Director of the Industrial Development Commission, which later became the Economic Development Au- thority; as the Director of the Consumer Services Administration, which is now the Department of Licensing and Con- sumer Affairs; as Commissioner of Insur- ance; Chairman of the Banking Board; and Director of Business and Adminis- AT A GLANCE THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATESVIRGIN ISLANDS WHAT: A territory of the United States WHERE: Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas WEBSITE: www.usa.gov/state-govern- ment/u-s-virgin-islands www.governormapp.com tration of the Public Finance Authority. In 1994, he was elected to a four-year term as Lieu- tenant Governor. After leaving office, he earned a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and completed the Advanced Man- agement Program at Harvard Business School. Mapp believes that his familiarity with both the public and private sectors have well-pre- pared him for the challenges of the Governor’s office. “My vision and my view comes from a real potpourri of experiences from the front line of government, through its middle management, right up to its top, and from the wide spectrum of issues having to do with man- agement and labor, to working with my clients in terms of trying to improve their bottom line and their competitive advantage in the marketplace - the whole nine yards,” he says. “And so, my view for the Virgin Islands is really basic in terms of the public sector,” he continues. “I ran on a platform of becoming more efficient and becoming more timely with the development and implementation of public policy.We’re really not efficient.We don’t spend our resources in a man-