Meet Greg | Friends of Greg Wims

Meet Greg Wims

Greg brings to the Maryland House of Delegates with over 50 years of public service to uplift disadvantaged and underrepresented communities in District 39 and across Montgomery County. In 2023, Greg was nominated by the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee to represent District 39, which includes Germantown, Montgomery Village, Washington Grove, and parts of unincorporated Gaithersburg in Montgomery County, MD. Prior to becoming a state delegate, Greg served as the Director of the Upcounty Regional Services Center for Montgomery County government. He lives in the historically Black community of Stewartown in District 39.

Greg currently serves on the House Ways and Means Committee. He also is a member of the Veterans Caucus, Legislative Black Caucus, and the Latino Caucus in the House of Delegates.

Working class values are the prime motivator of Greg’s public service.

Greg comes from a long line of the Wims family who built roots in District 39 for six generations. Greg was raised by working class parents in a home with no plumbing or electricity. He learned the values of hard work and determination from his mother, a domestic worker, and his father, a laborer. Influenced by his impoverished background, Greg has devoted more than 50 years to uplift communities in need at the local, state, federal, and international level.

Greg is a life-long public servant of over 40 non-profit boards.

Currently, Greg remains active on several boards that directly serve District 39 residents, including the Black Rock Center of the Arts, Women of Care Ministries, Chesapeake Bay Alliance, Universities of Maryland at Shady Grove, Montgomery College Foundation Board, and the Children’s Charities Foundation. Greg is also the Omega Psi Phi, Inc. political action chair, MuNu chapter in Montgomery County. Greg also became the first African American Governor for Rotary International for District 7620. Additionally, he has served on boards for the Goshen United Methodist Church, which has existed for over 170 years and based in the historically Black community of Stewartown.

Greg brings a government lens to the MD House of Delegates.

As former president of the Maryland Youth Commission, Greg played a pivotal role in lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 for the state. Greg went on to become the youngest person ever appointed by the County Executive as Commissioner of the Montgomery County Maryland Human Relations Commission. Along with his fellow Commissioners, Greg fought for hiring the first African American to the county police department. Later in his career, he worked in the legislative affairs office for the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and as a Special Assistant at the U.S Small Business Administration for Minority Business.

Greg has impacted many lives of crime victims and their families.

In 1996, Greg founded the Victims Rights Foundation (VRC), which was instrumental in forming and supporting the Sniper Victims’s Fund. These efforts provided $500,000 to support the victims and their families in response to the sniper attacks in the Washington D.C. metro area in 2002. Since its founding, VRC has raised over $1,000,000 for victims of violent crimes.

Greg is an African American trailblazer in Montgomery County.

Notably, Greg became the first male Head Start teacher in the county in 1974, showcasing his dedication to early education. Additionally, Greg became the first African American from Montgomery County to serve as a legislative assistant for former Congressman Newton Steers and Congressman Melvin Evans of the 8th Congressional District of Maryland.

Greg has stood up for civil rights at the local and state level.

Upon graduating from high school, Greg engaged in the civil rights movement, participating in sit-in demonstrations while attending Montgomery College. In the early 1990s, Greg served as the membership chairperson for NAACP. Under his leadership, Greg successfully recruited over a thousand new members to the NAACP. Later in 1994, he was successful in highlighting discrimination claims of African American employees at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) while serving as president of the Montgomery County Chapter of the NAACP. The NIH case gained local and national media coverage and led to Greg becoming president of the Maryland NAACP chapter.