Interview edited by Ben Mattison May 20, 2021
In 2011, Roderick Bremby was named commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Social Services, with responsibility for the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and more than 60 additional programs, including Medicaid. CT SNAP was then ranked among the country’s worst food stamp programs, with overwhelmed staff and delayed and inaccurate benefits. Over the next several years, Bremby transformed the program, reengineering business processes and digitizing, and streamlining the application process. By 2018, the federal government recognized the program as one of the best in the country.
Before coming to Connecticut, Bremby served as secretary of health and environment in state government in Kansas, where he made headlines when he cited greenhouse gas emissions in denying a permit for a proposed coal-burning power plant. He is now an executive in the global public health business unit at Salesforce, which has pro