Vilsack Longest-Serving USDA Chief in Nearly 50 Years

December 12, 2014 — 

Tom Vilsack, who has never hidden his love for his job as agriculture secretary, now has the longevity to match. On November 14, he became the longest-serving person in the Cabinet post in nearly 50 years. [Source: The Des Moines Register, November 14, 2014]

The former Iowa governor, who will surpass former President Bill Clinton's longtime agriculture secretary, Dan Glickman, has been in the position since the start of the Obama administration in January 2009 — a span of five years and nine months (or 2,124 days), making him the sixth-longest-serving agriculture secretary in U.S. history. The last person to hold the job longer was Minnesotan Orville Freeman, agriculture secretary for eight years — January 1961 to January 1969 — during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

The longest person in the job was another Iowan, James Wilson, who served 16 years from March 1897 to March 1913, during the McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft administrations.