Governor Bill Richardson in Kensington, New Hampshire, 2006

William Blaine "Bill" Richardson III (born November 15, 1947) is a Democratic politician and the current Governor of New Mexico. Prior to being elected governor, Richardson served in the Clinton administration as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Energy Secretary. Richardson has also served as a U.S. Congressman, chairman of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. On December 3, 2008, then-President-elect Barack Obama designated Richardson for appointment to the cabinet-level position of Commerce Secretary. On January 4, 2009, Richardson announced his decision to withdraw his nomination as a result of an investigation into improper business dealings in New Mexico. In August 2009, federal prosecutors dropped the pending investigation against the governor, and there has been speculation in the media about Richardson's career after his second and final term as New Mexico governor concludes.

Bill Richardson was born in Pasadena, California. His father, William Blaine Richardson Jr. (died in 1972), was an American Citibank executive who grew up in Boston, Massachusetts and lived and worked in Mexico City. His mother, María Luisa López-Collada Márquez is the Mexican daughter of a Spanish father from Villaviciosa, Asturias, Spain and a Mexican mother and was his father's secretary. Richardson's father was born in Nicaragua. Just before Richardson was born, his father sent his mother to California to give birth because, as Richardson explained, "My father had a complex about not having been born in the United States." Richardson, a U.S. citizen by birthright, was raised during his childhood in Mexico City. At age 13, Richardson's parents sent him to Massachusetts to attend a preparatory school, Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, where he played baseball as a pitcher. He entered Tufts University in 1966 where he continued to play baseball.