GUADAGNO WIELDS POWER IN NJ BUSINESS WORLD
By Juliet Fletcher/The Record
September 16, 2012
Over the past two years, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno’s public schedule has been filled with visits to hundreds of businesses, from bakeries to playhouses to New Jersey’s only bison farm, pressing the flesh as the ubiquitous symbol of the Christie administration’s “business-friendly” push.
But behind the company tours, photo ops and glad-handing, the 53-year-old former prosecutor has carved out an ever-expanding and increasingly powerful role as Governor Christie’s key link to the business community.
A year since the state’s first lieutenant governor was granted new and expanded executive powers to promote business growth statewide, Guadagno is well known for being reachable by cellphone when business leaders call with problems. Giving out her cell digits at every business roundtable she attends, she holds up her state-supplied Blackberry to tell them: “You paid for it.”
