page_title: Sonny Perdue
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Sonny Perdue / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: President George W. Bush and his mother Barbara Bush are greeted by Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, upon their arrival to Atlanta, Friday, July 22, 2005, to attend events to talk about Social Security and Medicare. White House photo by Paul Morse
context_page_description: George Ervin "Sonny" Perdue III is an American veterinarian, businessman, and politician currently serving as the 31st United States secretary of agriculture since 2017. He previously served as the 81st governor of Georgia from 2003 to 2011. He was the first Republican governor of Georgia since Reconstruction.
  Founder and partner in an agricultural trading company, Perdue served from 2012 to 2017 on the Governors' Council of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C. He is the second secretary of agriculture from the Deep South; the first was Mike Espy of Mississippi, who served under President Bill Clinton from January 1993 to December 1994.
  On January 18, 2017, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would nominate Perdue to be Secretary of Agriculture. His nomination was transmitted to the U.S. Senate on March 9, 2017. His nomination was approved by the United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry on March 30 by a 19–1 voice vote, and by the entire Senate in a vote of 87–11 on April 24.
context_section_description: Perdue served in the U.S. Air Force, rising to the rank of captain before his discharge.
caption: Perdue greeting President George W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush in July 2005
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