McDonnell’s pick has deep roots in Pittsylvania County

While some never make it off the family farm, Martin Kent has made it all the way to Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell’s new administration.

Kent, a Pittsylvania County native, is McDonnell’s pick as his chief of staff when his administration takes office in January.

“I’m absolutely from Pittsylvania County,” Kent said in a phone interview Friday.

Although Lynchburg’s Baptist Hospital was a closer place for his birth, from then on his roots are deep in the Hurt and Altavista area.

“I went to Hurt elementary and middle schools and graduated from Gretna High School in 1988,” he explained.

After high school, he earned not only a degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting from the University of Richmond, becoming a CPA, but later earned a law degree at Mercer University in Macon, Ga.

His roots run deep in Pittsylvania County, though.

“My grandfather moved from Altavista to Hurt in 1955, and my parents, Gordon and Sharon Kent, still live in the home place,” Kent said. “My father is a lawyer in Altavista and practices with my uncle, James Kent Jr.”

Kent’s grandfather, Dr. James P. Kent Sr., was a country doctor from the mid-1930s to 1979.

“If you are over the age of 50 and lived in northern Pittsylvania County, my grandfather either delivered you or worked on you,” Kent said.

During the news conference announcing the appointment, McDonnell characterized Kent as being “non-partisan.”

Kent said that tag probably stems from his two-career background and his lack of political aspirations.

“I’m not sure I even ever had any political aspirations,” he said. “I left home in 2001 to pursue a career in Richmond prosecuting white-collar crime, using both my CPA and law degree, because there wasn’t much white-collar crime in Pittsylvania County.”

He had previously been practicing law privately in Altavista where his emphasis was criminal defense and civil litigation.

“As a ground-floor attorney in the attorney general’s office, I got involved in the legislative process and got to know McDonnell, who was serving as a delegate and carrying a lot of then-Attorney General Jerry Kilgore’s legislation,” Kent said.

He also served in various capacities in the Public Safety and Enforcement Division, including chief of the office’s Special Prosecutions Section.
Aspirations aside, when McDonnell became attorney general in 2006, Kent was tapped to serve as his chief counsel.

“My responsibilities included overseeing the legislative agenda and coordinating the office’s representation of state boards, commissions and the interactions between the governor’s office and the General Assembly,” he said. “I also headed up the Government and Regulatory Reform Task Force.”

When McDonnell left to run for governor, Attorney General William Mims appointed Martin as chief deputy attorney general.

Kent will remain the chief deputy until McDonnell takes office on Jan. 16 after which he will have to go through a confirmation process.

If approved, Kent’s new responsibilities will both stay the same and change — “a little bit of both,” he said.

“I will oversee the governor’s cabinet and planning and budgeting the state government, as well as directly answering to the governor and seeing that his directives are carried out,” he said.

Kent said so many of his teachers through his years in Pittsylvania County have impacted his life that he hated to try and name them all.

He said his greatest professional influences have been his family and in his legal career, H.F. Haymore Jr., Pittsylvania County’s clerk of circuit court, and Circuit Court Judge Charles Strauss.

“As a young lawyer starting out, if I had a question, H.F. had the answer, and if I made a mistake, he would help me,” Kent said. “Judge Strauss was the judge in one of my first jury trials in circuit court, and he would take time to say how I had performed as a lawyer. He mentored me.”

Kent knows he has a challenge ahead of him as he joins the new gubernatorial administration.

“It’s a big responsibility, obviously even larger than the one I currently have,” he said.