Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner announced the appointment of Trey Childress, an Ivan Allen College alum and advisory board member, as the state’s deputy governor and part of a three-person “turnaround team” to address what he called a “current trajectory that is unsustainable as a state.”

Rauner made the announcement following a presentation at the University of Chicago, commending the team as a group of superstars who have deep experience in addressing structural issues such as management, budgets, and streamlining bureaucracies.

Also part of the team are veteran state policy and budget expert Donna Arduin as CFO and former Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle as Senior Adviser.

Childress earned a master’s degree from the Ivan Allen College School of Public Policy, a B.S in The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, as well as a B.S. in industrial and systems engineering from Georgia Tech. He has a long track record of service in the State of Georgia. He served as the COO under two governors. He was responsible for leadership and supervision of Georgia’s 50 state departments, agencies, and boards and commissions while leading government transformation initiatives. Prior to that, he served as the director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, and was responsible for the state’s $32 billion budget, annual capital outlay portfolio of $1 billion and state business planning during the unprecedented revenue losses of the Great Recession. Childress previously served as senior adviser and director of policy for the Office of the Governor with the successful passage of more than 30 signature policy initiatives in education, health care, transportation, taxation, and natural resources. He began his career in public service working with the former Georgia Information Technology Policy Council, the Georgia Technology Authority and the Office of Planning and Budget. During his service, Georgia was recognized as one of the best managed states in the country by Governing Magazine.