Corbett Nominates Gary Tennis to Lead Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs
January 25, 2012

Governor Corbett has nominated Gary Tennis of Philadelphia to serve as secretary of the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs. The new department was created as a result of Act 50 signed into law before Governor Rendell left office. The Corbett administration had decided last year not to create the department, citing budgetary constraints, but has decided to move forward.

Tennis is retired from his previous position as chief of the legislation unit in the Philadelphia’s District Attorney’s Office, where he represented the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association working with the General Assembly. He has more than 25 years of legislative experience and served as executive director of the President’s Commission on Model State Drug Laws in 1993.  He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Tulsa in 1975 and was a Rhodes Scholarship nominee. He is also a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania Law School.

It was reported that Tennis’s first order of business will be to analyze the provision of drug and alcohol services, which are currently provided through several agencies including the Departments of Health and Public Welfare. Tennis has been charged with taking a “commonsense approach to streamlining and eliminating duplication of state drug and alcohol treatment and prevention efforts in Pennsylvania.”

The Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs was created under Act 50 of 2010. It will establish a plan for the management and allocation of state and federal funds used to oversee alcohol and drug prevention, intervention, and treatment services. The Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs is currently located in the Health and Welfare building. The Pennsylvania Department of Health is assisting in the agency’s formation.

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