Patrick J. Cunningham
Deputy Director
(602) 771-2204
(800) 234-5677

As the Deputy Director of the ADEQ, Patrick acts as the Chief of Staff to the director and on his behalf oversees the agency's day-to-day operations and attends to selected policy and enforcement issues.

Pat served as Acting Director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality from January 2009 until June 2009 after serving six years during a previous stint as deputy director of the agency.

Prior to coming to ADEQ, Pat worked for 12 years in the Arizona Attorney General's Office, where he served as chief counsel for the Environmental Enforcement Section and the Criminal Division, directed legislative affairs, and served as a special litigation counsel and chief counsel of the Civil Rights Litigation Section.

Before joining the Attorney General's Office, he served as an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force in Arizona, and as a captain in the U.S. Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps.

Patrick served on the State Bar Ethics Rules Review Group which rewrote the Bar's Ethical Rules from 2001 through 2002, and volunteered on the State Bar Ethics Committee from 1995 through 2002 and the State Bar Appointments Committee from 2001 through 2007.

Patrick is from Kingman, Arizona and he received his bachelor's degree in 1976 from the University of Michigan where he graduated cum laude. He earned his law degree from Arizona State University in 1979.

He is married to Mary Ellen Cunningham and they have two daughters, Mary Kate, who works for the Armed Services Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., and Meaghan, who attends Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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