Jennifer Granholm

Her paternal grandfather was Hugo "Anders" Granholm, who immigrated to Penny, British Columbia, Canada, in the late 1920s 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 SS Bergensfjord from Oslo to Halifax, and from there she took the railway to Penny, British Columbia, where her uncles and several others had established 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.

Jennifer Mulhern Granholm (born February 5, 1959) is an Canadian-born American politician.

Since 2021, she has served as the 16th United States secretary of energy.

Granholm attended Ida Price Junior 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 abandoned her efforts at age 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 age 21, 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 obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984 and a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1987.

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.

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.

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 was appointed to the Wayne County Corporation Counsel in 1995.

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.

In 1995, she was appointed as Corporation Counsel for Wayne County, 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.

In 1998, Granholm ran for attorney general of Michigan, defeating Republican nominee John Smietanka.

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.

A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the attorney general of Michigan from 1999 to 2003 and as the 47th governor of Michigan from 2003 to 2011, as the first woman to hold both offices.

Born in Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada), Granholm moved to California at age four.

She ran for governor of Michigan in 2002 and was elected the state's first female governor.

She was re-elected in 2006.

Granholm was a member of the presidential transition team for Barack Obama before he assumed office in 2009.

After leaving public office, Granholm took a position at the UC 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.

In 2017, she was hired as a CNN political contributor.

After President-elect Joe Biden announced his intention to nominate Granholm to head the United States Department of Energy in 2020, she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2021.

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.