As the COVID-19 pandemic begins to tighten its grip on the state once more, Maryland prepares to lose another top-ranking health official: Department of Health Secretary Robert R. Neall is set to retire effective Dec. 1.

“We weren’t ready to announce this yet today, but I can confirm we just had an emergency cabinet meeting this afternoon where Secretary Bobby Neall, who has been a long-time friend for decades and who’s done an incredible job leading a wonderful team of people throughout this crisis, he gave us notice … that he’s leaving the administration,” said Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr (R) at the end of a news conference Tuesday evening.

Neall, 72, has been a part of the Hogan administration since the governor took office, serving on his transition team and as director and senior adviser for the Governor’s Office of Transformation and Renewal before assuming his role at the Department of Health in 2018.

But his career in Maryland politics didn’t begin with Hogan. Neall, a Navy veteran, has served the state over 45 years in one capacity or another, managing to maintain admirers on both sides of the aisle.

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