Shenna Bellows

Shenna Bellows assumed office as Maine’s first female secretary of state on January 4, 2020.

Bellows was born on March 23, 1975, in Greenfield, Mass. She graduated magna cum laude from Middlebury College in 1997, where she received highest honors for a thesis in economic and environmental sustainability.

Bellows worked as a research associate at Economists Incorporated from 1997 to 1999, then served in the Peace Corps in Panama as a small-business development volunteer. She was then an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer in Nashville, Tenn., assisting a startup non-profit develop a program to promote educational and economic empowerment for young people in Nashville's largest public housing project. Bellows was the national field organizer at the ACLU in Washington, DC, and served as executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Maine for the eight years. From 2018-2020 she was the executive director for the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine. In 2014, she was the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Maine, but lost to incumbent Sen. Susan Collins. Bellows served as a Maine state senator from 2016-2020.