Representative Greg Wims Contact information

William Gregory Wims, known as Greg Wims, was born on September 2, 1949, in Bethesda, Maryland. His mother worked as a domestic and his father was a laborer. He was raised in Stewarttown, a historically Black community near Montgomery Village, Maryland, in a home purchased by his ancestors after slavery.

Wims graduated from Gaithersburg High School in 1968, where he played on the track and football teams and was active in civil rights sit-ins. From 1968 until 1970, Wims attended Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland. In 1969, he was named the Vice President of the Maryland Youth Commission. In 1970 he transferred to Howard University but left before earning his degree. He later earned a B.S. degree in political science from the University of Maryland, College Park.

As of July 2021, Wims has served on over 30 non-profit boards, including Holy Cross Hospital, the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, and Adventist Hospital. He is also the founder of the Victims’ Rights Foundation and the Sniper Victims’ Fund, and has raised over $2 million for various causes.

Wims was elected to the Maryland Youth Commission soon after graduating from high school. In this position, Wims supported lowering the voting age in Maryland from 21 to 18. In the early 1970s, Montgomery County Executive James P. Gleason appointed Wims to the Montgomery County Maryland Human Rights Commission, where he was its youngest member. In 1974, he became the first male Head Start teacher in Montgomery County.

In 1976, Wims joined the congressional campaign of U.S. Representative Newton Steers, eventually becoming his chief legislative officer and the first African American from Montgomery County to work on Capitol Hill until 1978. Afterwards, he worked as a legislative assistant to U.S. Representative Melvin H. Evans. In 1980, he worked on the presidential campaign of former California governor Ronald Reagan, later working in the Reagan administration as a legislative assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture, and as the Special Assistant to the Director of Minority Affairs and Economic Development until 1989, when he left to start his own government consulting firm, Hammer and Nails Inc.

In the early 1990s, Wims served as the membership chairman for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1993, he was elected president of the Montgomery County NAACP, eventually becoming the president of the state NAACP branch in 1995.

Greg Wims is currently a member of the Maryland House of Delegates from District 39. He assumed office on May 2, 2023. His current term ends on January 13, 2027.