Terrence Reidy, the state’s public safety secretary since 2021 and a top aide under two governors, is retiring from his post, state officials said Tuesday, further reshaping Governor Maura Healey’s leadership team ahead of her reelection push next year.
Reidy, who turns 56 next week, is the fourth member of Healey’s cabinet to leave or announce they’re leaving their posts since the spring, following her secretaries on economic development, health, and veteran services. He was the only member of former governor Charlie Baker’s cabinet that Healey reappointed to her own when she took office in 2023.
Reidy’s departure, announced Tuesday, appears to be immediate; Healey’s office said that Susan Terrey, currently a deputy secretary and homeland security undersecretary, will begin Wednesday as interim secretary, overseeing a vast state bureaucracy that includes the Massachusetts State Police, the Department of Correction, and an array of other agencies.
Reidy’s “tenure is defined by strong leadership, integrity, and devotion to supporting our public safety personnel,” Healey said in a statement. “It’s why I first hired him in the Attorney General’s Office, and why I asked him to stay on as Public Safety and Security Secretary.”
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Reidy was an assistant district attorney in Suffolk and Worcester counties, and served as chief of the attorney general’s office’s major crimes and cyber unit when Healey was the state’s top prosecutor.
It’s not unusual for a governor’s cabinet to turn over late in his or her term. Reidy did not cite a reason for leaving in a statement released by Healey’s office, saying that serving under her and Baker, a two-term Republican, had “been the honor of my career.”
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Healey’s office credited him with expanding reentry and other programs at the Department of Correction, where officials have closed two prisons since last year. Serious violent crime declined last year in Massachusetts, state data show, even as reports of other incidents, including antisemitic hate crimes, have risen.
“I’m proud of all we have accomplished as a team, building a Commonwealth that is safer, more prepared, and more resilient,” Reidy said in a statement.
He follows a series of other high-ranking officials who’ve left the administration in recent months. Economic development Secretary Yvonne Hao said in April she was leaving her post, and was eventually replaced by prominent venture capitalist Eric Paley.
In July, Kate Walsh, a former hospital executive whom Healey appointed to lead the state’s largest secretariat in 2023, stepped down, noting at the time that she and the governor agreed Walsh would serve in the position for two years. Dr. Kiame Mahaniah, undersecretary of health in the office since April 2023, replaced her as the state’s top health and human services official.
Jon Santiago, an emergency room doctor and a major in the US Army Reserve, then said in August he would leave as Massachusetts’ secretary for veterans services at some point this fall, and had plans to return to his shifts at Boston Medical Center.
Healey said in February that she would seek a second term in 2026.
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.