William Gregory Wims (born September 2, 1949) is an American politician, businessman, and community volunteer who is currently a member of the Maryland House of Delegates from District 39.
As of July 2021, Wims has served on over 30 non-profit boards, including Holy Cross Hospital, the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, and Adventist Hospital. He is also the founder of the Victims' Rights Foundation and the Sniper Victims' Fund, and has raised over $2 million for various causes.[5][6]
Wims was elected to the Maryland Youth Commission soon after graduating from high school. In this position, Wims supported lowering the voting age in Maryland from 21 to 18.[7]
In the early 1970s, Montgomery County Executive James P. Gleason appointed Wims to the Montgomery County Maryland Human Rights Commission, where he was its youngest member. In 1974, he became the first male Head Start teacher in Montgomery County. In 1976, Wims joined the congressional campaign of U.S. Representative Newton Steers, eventually becoming his chief legislative officer and the first African American from Montgomery County to work on Capitol Hill until 1978.[8] Afterwards, he worked as a legislative assistant to U.S. Representative Melvin H. Evans.[7] In 1980, he worked on the presidential campaign of former California governor Ronald Reagan,[2] later working in the Reagan administration as a legislative assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture, and as the Special Assistant to the Director of Minority Affairs and Economic Development until 1989, when he left to start his own government consulting firm, Hammer and Nails Inc.[7]
In January 2000, Wims announced that he would form an exploratory committee to consider a run in the special election for the Montgomery County Council seat in District 1, following the resignation of Republican councilmember Betty Ann Krahnke.[12]
In 2018, Wims unsuccessfully ran for the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee in District 15, receiving 42.4 percent of the vote.[13] He later served on the transition team of Montgomery County Executive-elect Marc Elrich in November 2018.[14] In July 2021, Elrich appointed Wims to serve as a director for the Montgomery County Regional Service.[5][15]
In the legislature
In April 2023, Wims applied to fill a vacancy left by the resignation of state delegate Kirill Reznik to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Inter-Departmental Data Integration for the Maryland Department of Human Services.[16][17] He won the nomination by a vote of 17–6 on April 18, 2023.[3] He was sworn in on May 2, 2023.[18]