Mary Wheat, Chief Deputy Director

Mary Wheat was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom on Feb 6, 2019 to be Chief Deputy at the Civil Right’s Department. Prior to her appointment, Mary served as Deputy Director of Enforcement at CRD, where she was responsible for the strategic direction and performance of the team conducting all civil rights investigations. In that role, Mary led the implementation of projects that resulted in significant improvements in case processing techniques and timelines, including the elimination of case backlogs and the successful roll-out of a new electronic case management system.

Mary Wheat has served the state of California for 27 years and prior to joining CRD, she was the Assistant Director in the Filing Division at Franchise Tax Board. Mary represented FTB in all aspects of the Department’s processing and enforcement operations.

In addition to working at FTB, she volunteers as a mentor for the Intergovernmental Management Training Program (IGMT), a non-profit organization that is a training ground for top-level state, federal and city managers. She studied at Humboldt State University and Sacramento State University with a concentration in Business Management.