Jacob R. Day, Secretary
Prior to his nomination to lead the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development under Governor Wes Moore, Secretary Jacob R. Day served as the 28th Mayor of Salisbury, Maryland. Born and raised in Salisbury, he previously served as City Council President. His tenure as Mayor was marked by a resurgent downtown, including nearly $650 million in new construction, the establishment of two youth community centers, and the creation of a permanent supportive housing program to address chronic homelessness.
Secretary Day also previously worked for the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, most recently as Director of the Center for Towns, utilizing design, planning, and implementation assistance to establish vibrant, sustainable small cities and towns. He served as national president of the American Institute of Architecture Students, and as editor-in-chief of CRIT, a journal of architecture. He was also elected as the 79th president of the Maryland Municipal League, representing Maryland’s 157 municipalities, and was one of Maryland’s representatives to the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Local Government Advisory Committee.
As a Major in the U.S. Army, Secretary Day is assigned to the Maryland Army National Guard as an Information Operations and Special Technical Operations Officer with the 110th Information Operations Battalion. He is a veteran of the Global War on Terrorism and was deployed to Somalia, Kenya, and Djibouti.
Secretary Day earned a Master of Science in Nature, Society & Environmental Policy from Oxford University. He also earned a Master of Urban Design from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Maryland. He is the proud father to two beautiful daughters, Lilly and Olivia.
Owen McEvoy, Deputy Secretary
Owen McEvoy is the Deputy Secretary for the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).
Prior to his current role, he served as DHCD’s Director of Public Information where he managed a team of marketing, communications, outreach, business development and customer service professionals. During his tenure, he also directed a series of business development and marketing campaigns that have enabled the Maryland Mortgage Program to achieve more than $1 billion in mortgage reservations.
Before his time in Maryland state government, he served as Director of Media Relations and Public Information Officer for Anne Arundel County Executive Steve Schuh, where he worked extensively on land use and development issues. He also served previously as a Deputy Communications Director and chief speechwriter for former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, and as an aide to former Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich.
A graduate of Villanova University School of Law and Georgetown University, he resides in Anne Arundel County with his wife.
Carol A. Gilbert, Assistant Secretary
Division of Neighborhood Revitalization
Assistant Secretary, Carol A. Gilbert heads the Division of Neighborhood Revitalization, the office responsible for administering the majority of the department's community development and revitalization programs. Those include the Community Legacy, Strategic Demolition Fund and Community Development Block Grant programs.
Before joining the department, the assistant secretary served as both a program consultant and program officer with the Goldseker Foundation, specializing in providing investment strategies and community development expertise to support nonprofit organizations helping communities and individuals in the Baltimore metropolitan area. She is a former executive director of the Neighborhood Design Center, a 30 year-old nonprofit organization dedicated to providing lower income communities access to professional community design services. She also founded the Baltimore Homeownership Preservation Coalition, a public-private partnership working to prevent the loss of affordable housing due to mortgage foreclosure and predatory lending.
Assistant Secretary Gilbert received a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Virginia and a master's degree in architecture from the University of Maryland College Park's Graduate School of Architecture.
