Jim Doyle

James Edward Doyle Jr. (born November 23, 1945) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th governor of Wisconsin, serving from January 6, 2003 to January 3, 2011. In his first election to the governorship, he defeated incumbent Governor Scott McCallum by a margin of 45 percent to 41 percent; the Libertarian Party candidate Ed Thompson won 10 percent of the vote. Although in 2002 Democrats increased their number of governorships, Doyle was the only one of them to unseat a Republican. Doyle also served as Wisconsin’s Attorney General for 12 years before becoming Governor. He is currently an attorney 'of counsel' in the Madison, Wisconsin office of the law firm of Foley & Lardner and serves on the corporate board of Epic Systems and Exact Sciences. Early life and education Jim Doyle was born on November 23, 1945, in Washington, D.C., the son of Ruth Bachhuber Doyle and James Edward Doyle, who were influential leaders of the post-1946 Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Doyle Sr. ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1954 and was appointed as a federal judge in 1965. Ruth Bachhuber Doyle was the first woman from Dane County to be elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1948. Doyle, who graduated from Madison West High School in 1963, attended Stanford University for three years, then returned home to Madison to finish his senior year at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. After graduating from college and inspired by John F. Kennedy's call to public service, Doyle worked as a teacher with his wife, Jessica Doyle in Tunisia as part of the Peace Corps from 1967 to 1969. In 1972, Doyle earned his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. He then moved to the Navajo Indian Reservation in Chinle, Arizona, where he worked as an attorney in a federal legal services office.