{"id":23159,"date":"2010-11-04T08:45:30","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T14:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=23159"},"modified":"2010-11-17T09:35:26","modified_gmt":"2010-11-17T16:35:26","slug":"meet-the-first-gentleman-chuck-franco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/11\/meet-the-first-gentleman-chuck-franco\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the first gentleman, Chuck Franco"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Chuck Franco (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Santa Fe New Mexican takes a look today at the will-be first gentleman of New Mexico \u2013 Chuck Franco, Gov.-elect Susana Martinez\u2019s<\/a> husband.<\/p>\n

Franco, who finishes his tenure as Do\u00f1a Ana County\u2019s undersheriff at the end of the year, has spent his career in law enforcement, working for the Las Cruces, NMSU and Do\u00f1a Ana County Sheriff\u2019s departments and as a game warden for the state\u2019s Game and Fish Department.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s worked undercover, and that\u2019s how Martinez met him, The New Mexican reports today in its profile<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was at the Do\u00f1a Ana County District Attorney\u2019s Office to present a case to Martinez, who was new to her job at the time. She was out of her office, so he sat down to wait. When she returned to her office and saw him there, she thought he was \u2018a bad guy,\u2019 as he tells it, and immediately called security.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo wonder: Franco at the time was dressed like a gang member, with a hair net, a tattoo, earrings and what he calls a \u2018grandpa T-shirt.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cMartinez then was introduced to Agent Franco.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe immediately took a liking to her, and remembers being impressed that she was so \u2018on her toes.\u2019 He laughs when he says that it wasn\u2019t until he \u2018cleaned up\u2019 \u2014 he is prone to wear cowboy hats, boots and other western wear \u2014 that she took a liking to him.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Franco\u2019s career includes work with juveniles and gangs. He\u2019s worked some of the most horrific cases in Las Cruces, including the bowling alley massacre that left four people dead in 1990.<\/p>\n

Franco\u2019s role as the state\u2019s first gentleman isn\u2019t clear. He\u2019s the first man to hold that title because Martinez is the state\u2019s first female governor. As The New Mexican reports, \u201cpast gubernatorial spouses have played the part in various ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, first lady Barbara Richardson has worked on several issues, including domestic violence, during Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s tenure, but has been increasingly less noticeable, hardly being seen in public for months.<\/p>\n

\u201cFormer first lady Alice King, in contrast, played a major role in her husband\u2019s administrations, helping run some agencies, while the last Republican governor\u2019s spouse, the late Dee Johnson, chose to focus on specific issues, such as a ban on smoking in the state Capitol.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more from The New Mexican here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Disclosure: A lot of years ago, Franco worked for my father at the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. A prior version of this posting incorrectly said the bowling alley massacre was in 1980.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Martinez and Franco in Las Cruces on Election Day. (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Santa Fe New Mexican takes a look today at the will-be first gentleman of New Mexico \u2013 Chuck Franco, Gov.-elect Susana Martinez\u2019s husband.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,115,107],"class_list":["post-23159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}