Vice President of Advocacy
Chief Government Affairs Officer

The Honorable Conway Collis, Vice President of Advocacy and Chief Government Affairs Officer, uses his extensive knowledge of government and public policy to help implement the Daughters’ mission of service to the poor and address the full range of issues affecting the DCHS local health ministries.  He also represents DCHS before Congress, the state legislature and other public forums.  Collis has served as an elected Member and Chairman of the California State Board of Equalization, California’s umbrella revenue agency; a domestic policy advisor to U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston; and a Committee Counsel in the U.S. Senate.  Prior to joining DCHS full time in 2005, he was President of Collis Associates, a company he founded in 1993, which provided a full range of public policy services to private and public sector clients.  Collis Associates served as the public policy counsel to DCHS since the health system’s inception in 2001.

After graduation from Stanford Law School, as a Counsel to the U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee and domestic policy advisor to U.S. Senator Alan Cranston, Collis was responsible for advising on federal domestic public policy issues including health, housing, energy and poverty.  After serving as Finance Director for Senator Cranston’s successful 1980 reelection campaign, he was the founding Executive Director of the principal fundraising arm of the U.S. Senate Democratic Campaign Committee.

Collis was elected to the State Board of Equalization, California’s umbrella tax and revenue agency, in 1982.  Re-elected in 1986, he served as Chairman of the Equalization Board, overseeing an agency with over 1500 employees in 57 offices.  He wrote and successfully sponsored a number of new laws and regulations, including the State Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, tax credits for employer-sponsored childcare and the elimination of tax benefits for discriminatory private clubs.  He also implemented a broad modernization and reform of the state tax bureaucracy.  While on the Board, Collis chaired a major 1986 statewide voter registration drive, registering nearly 300,000 voters, and was the proponent of a 1988 statewide initiative to address housing and homelessness through a coordinated, cost-effective program.  In 2001, he served as Chairman of the California State Senate Bipartisan Task Force on Homelessness.

Collis graduated with honors from Occidental College in 1970 and Stanford Law School in 1974.