Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Carrie Gordon

67. Carrie Gordon

It is hard to fathom that the California Dental Association has been around since 1870. We don’t know if it has always had this much bite (see what we did there?), but the 27,000-member organization definitely is one of the more effective trade groups in the game. One of the reasons is Chief Strategy Officer Carrie Gordon, a savvy political veteran who keeps a low profile but is well known among anyone inside the Capitol community. She had a big role in the MICRA negotiations last year, and could also lay claim to victories in “all of CDA’s priority asks” in the 2022-23 state budget, including a $50 million for dental patients with special needs, and $10 million for dental student clinical rotations. The CDA went into this year looking to force more consumer protections on dental insurers, particularly wiping out loopholes that allow denial of coverage and increased costs. The fate of those measures is yet to be determined. Gordon earned her bachelor’s degree from Cal Poly and an MBA from UC Davis. She’s been with CDA since 2001.

Updated Aug. 15, 2023