Jennifer Mulhern Granholm (born February 5, 1959) is a Canadian-American politician, lawyer, educator, author, and political commentator serving as the 16th United States secretary of energy. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the 47th governor of Michigan from 2003 to 2011. She was the first woman to serve as Michigan's governor, and she earlier served as attorney general of Michigan. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Granholm moved from Canada to California at age four. She graduated from San Carlos High School and briefly attempted an acting career, then held a variety of jobs before attending the University of California, Berkeley. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1984 and then a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. She then clerked for Judge Damon Keith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, became an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan in 1991 and in 1995 she was appointed to the Wayne County Corporation Counsel. Granholm ran for Attorney General of Michigan in 1998 to succeed 37-year Democratic incumbent Frank J. Kelley. She defeated Republican John Smietanka, the 1994 nominee and former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Michigan, by 52% to 48% and served from 1999 to 2003. She ran for governor in 2002 to succeed Republican John Engler. She defeated Engler's lieutenant governor Dick Posthumus by 51% to 47% and became Michigan's first female governor on January 1, 2003. She was re-elected to a second term in 2006 against Republican businessman Dick DeVos (the husband of Betsy DeVos) by a large margin and served until January 1, 2011, when she left office due to state term-limits. She was a member of the presidential transition team for Barack Obama before he assumed office in January 2009. After leaving public office, Granholm took a position at U.C. Berkeley and, with her husband Daniel Mulhern, authored A Governor's Story: The Fight for Jobs and America's Future, released in 2011. She became host of The War Room with Jennifer Granholm on Current TV. In January 2017, she was hired as a CNN political contributor.On December 15, 2020, President-elect Joe Biden announced his intention to nominate Granholm to head the United States Department of Energy. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 25, 2021, by a vote of 64–35. Early life and education Granholm was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Shirley Alfreda (née Dowden) and Victor Ivar Granholm, both bank tellers. Granholm's maternal grandparents came from Ireland and Newfoundland, respectively. Her paternal grandfather was Hugo "Anders" Granholm, who immigrated to Penny, British Columbia, Canada in the late 1920s, came from Robertsfors, Sweden, where his father was the mayor. The former Minister for Enterprise and Energy and former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden, Maud Olofsson, lives in Robertsfors, and when the two met in Sweden, the media revealed that Olofsson's husband is a relative of Granholm. Her paternal grandmother was Judith Olivia Henriette (Solstad) Granholm, an emigrant from Gjerstad in Southern Norway. She came with the ship Bergensfjord from Oslo to Halifax, and from there she took the railway to Penny, British Columbia, where her uncles and several others had establish a small logging village.Granholm's family immigrated to California when she was four years old. She grew up in Anaheim, San Jose, and San Carlos. Granholm attended Ida Price Jr. High and Del Mar High School before graduating from San Carlos High School in 1977 and won the Miss San Carlos beauty pageant. As a young adult she attempted to launch a Hollywood acting career but was unsuccessful and abandoned her efforts at the age of 21. In 1978 she appeared on The Dating Game, and held jobs as a tour guide at Universal Studios and in customer service at the Los Angeles Times and was the first female tour guide at Marine World Africa USA in Redwood City, piloting boats with 25 tourists aboard.In 1980, at the age of 21 years, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and worked for John B. Anderson's campaign for president of the United States as an Independent in the 1980 election. She then enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, the first person in her family to attend college. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1984 with a B.A. in Political Science and French. During a year in France, she helped to smuggle clothes and medical supplies to Jewish people in the Soviet Union and became involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement. She then earned a Juris Doctor degree at Harvard University, also with honors, in 1987. At Harvard Law School, Granholm served as Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, the leading progressive law journal in the United States. Early career After graduating from Harvard Law School, Granholm clerked for Judge Damon Keith, a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, from 1987 to 1988. She also worked for the Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential campaign. After working as an attorney in the Wayne County executive office from 1989 to 1991, Granholm became an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan in 1991. She helped to prosecute drug dealers, gang members and child pornographers, sued the state and fought against credit card fraud. Of the 154 people Granholm tried, 151 were convicted. In 1995, she was appointed to serve as Corporation Counsel for Wayne County, becoming the youngest person to hold the position. Granholm defended the County against lawsuits, sued the state over road taxes and fought to uphold environmental laws. Michigan Attorney General 1998 election Thirty-seven year Democratic Attorney General Frank J. Kelley chose not to run for a 10th term in 1998 and Granholm entered the race to succeed him. Unopposed for the Democratic nomination, she faced Republican John Smietanka, the 1994 nominee and former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Michigan, in the general election. The campaign began as a relatively friendly one, with both agreeing that they wanted to expand the Internet Crimes Unit, start neighbourhood-based crime-fighting programmes and continue working as a consumer advocate, as Kelley had done.However, the race turned bitter in mid-September, when Smietanka ran television ads that called Granholm an "inexperienced" and "dangerous" liberal. He also tried to link Granholm to Democratic gubernatorial nominee Geoffrey Fieger's crime plan, which called for greater emphasis on rehabilitation for non-violent criminals and shortening their prison terms. Granholm, who had disavowed Fieger's crime plan the day it was released, said that the claim was "a lie, just a lie" and that as attorney general, "you are the person who is to protect the consumer from deceitful ads." Asked what separated her from .... Discover the Julie Mulhern popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Julie Mulhern books.