Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023 | 5:19 p.m.
Gov. Joe Lombardo on Wednesday announced a new director for the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, giving a new voice to a state office that was once under public scrutiny for its handling of unemployment claims amid the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a statement, Lombardo announced Christopher Sewell as the department’s director. Sewell had served in the department for the last six years and has been acting as the agency’s deputy director for more than a year and a half, according to the release.
“Chris is dedicated to serving Nevadans,” Lombardo said in the statement. “And I’m confident that he’s going to continue his outstanding state service by bringing new purpose and leadership to DETR.”
Prior to his time in the department, Sewell served the Division of Insurance in the compliance unit, and worked in the state’s real estate division as a compliance and audit unit, according to the release. He began his career as a regulator with the Nevada Transportation Authority as an investigator and has also worked for the Public Utilities Commission as a financial analyst, senior compliance investigator and acting manager within the consumer unit.
Sewell, a fifth generation Nevadan born in Reno, began his career as a Washoe County Sheriff’s Office Deputy, and later became a Washoe County School District police officer. He holds a degree in business administration from Menlo College, a small university about 40 miles south of San Francisco.
Shortly after the pandemic forced the state’s economy to come to a screeching halt for several months in 2020, DETR quickly became inundated with a record number of applicants filing for unemployment insurance. It took the state, however, sometimes several weeks to process claims, which ultimately led to promises to reform the agency.
In October, former Gov. Steve Sisolak — who was defeated in November by Lombardo — said at a debate between the two the state’s unemployment division was in dire need of an overhaul due to a lack of staffing and resources.
“We did what we possibly could,” Sisolak said at the Oct. 2 debate. “We got more claims in a week than we would (normally) get in a year.”
