Eric Milstead, who’s been a non-partisan staffer for the Idaho Legislature for the past 17 years, today was named the next director of legislative services; he’ll take over at the end of September when longtime director Jeff Youtz retires. Milstead was selected by a unanimous vote of the Legislative Council, after the bipartisan panel of lawmakers that oversees legislative business outside of sessions interviewed four finalists; the others were Ross Borden, Dwight Johnson and Ken Roberts.

“I am quite honored and humbled,” Milstead said. He’s an Idaho native who holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Oklahoma State University and a law degree from the University of Kansas; he practiced law for a while and clerked for a court of appeals, then saw a job opening working in budget and policy for the Kansas Legislature. “It sounded intriguing – I jumped at it,” Milstead said. After four years in that position, “We kind of wanted to get back to Idaho,” he said. So he joined the Idaho Legislature as a performance evaluator at the Legislature’s Office of Performance Evaluations. In 2001, he switched to the office of budget and policy, where he worked as a budget analyst, until 2007, when he shifted to research and legislation, taking a position as a research analyst and bill drafter.

Milstead is married with two children; the youngest just graduated from high school, and the oldest is in the Navy.