Sila María Calderón: 1942—: Governor of Puerto Rico

Elected governor with 48.6 percent of the vote, Calderón defeated Carlos Pesquera and took office on January 2, 2001. She and her second husband, insurance broker Adolfo Krans, moved with their family into La Fortaleza, the governor's residence. As she had promised, she demanded a free press and halted bureaucratic bribery and extortion. A year later she arrested the former governor's personal aide, Maria de Los Angeles Rivera, and former Education Secretary Victor Fajardo. To preserve campaign honesty, she voluntarily opened the party's accounts to public scrutiny.

Calderón met with President George W. Bush to plot a business strategy that relied less on federal aid. She stated in an interview conducted by the Washington Times, "We want our people … to have the dignity of holding a job. We do not want an Island dependent on welfare." To achieve fiscal autonomy, she lowered operating costs, expedited business permits, and acquired economic aid to boost employment. She anticipated completion of El Puerto de las Americas, the island's transshipment cargo consolidator, as a vital source of employment in the country.

At her program's core lay the need to compete with Ireland, Korea, and Singapore, which paid lower wages and offered investment incentives to business. Calderón proposed tax breaks to lure companies who were willing to become foreign-controlled corporations. Specifically, she called for extending the 1998 Tax Incentives Act, offering a 200 percent deduction for worker training and a tax rebate on newly purchased equipment, and lowering the capital gains tax for investors. She welcomed Eli Lilly & Company, which built a $250 million biotechnology plant to employ 300 people in the manufacture of Humalog, the first synthetic insulin.