Laura Fortman

In January 2018, Laura Fortman announced that she would seek election to the Maine State Senate in District 13 (Alna, Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, Bremen, Bristol, Damariscotta, Edgecomb, Hibberts Gore, Jefferson, Louds Island, Monhegan Island Plantation, Newcastle, Nobleboro, Somerville, South Bristol, Southport, Waldoboro, Washington, Westport Island, Whitefield, Windsor, and Wiscasset).

From October 2011 to May 2013 Fortman was the executive director of the Frances Perkins Center in Damariscotta. In June 2013 she was named deputy administrator of the Wage and Hour Division at the United States Department of Labor.

She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2007.

Governor John Baldacci nominated Fortman to be the next commissioner of the Maine Department of Labor in April 2003. Fortman assumed responsibility for 490 department employees and also chaired the Governor's Workforce Cabinet. During her tenure until the end of 2010, the gender pay gap was decreased and the state created more and nontraditional employment services for women. Afterward she served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maine at Augusta.

In 2001 Fortman was the recipient of the Maryann Hartman Award from the University of Maine. In 2010 she received the Frances Perkins award from the Lincoln County Democrats. In 2012 she received the Friend of USM Women & Gender Studies Award from the University of Southern Maine. She has also received awards from the Maine Women's Fund, the Maine Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance, and the Maine People's Alliance, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Maine at Augusta.

Fortman dedicated the early part of her career to improving the lives of women and girls, particularly related to policy work advancing support for victims of sexual and domestic violence. As a survivor of sexual assault, Forman's resilience and courage led her to work as a direct service provider at the Women's Resource Center in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. When she came to Maine in the mid-1980s, she successfully directed the Sexual Assault Crisis and Support Center and was a founding member of the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

Laura A. Fortman (born 1954) is an American government employee, non-profit executive, and women's rights activist. Since 2013 she has served as deputy administrator of the Wage and Hour Division at the United States Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. Previously she was commissioner of the Maine Department of Labor, and executive director of the Frances Perkins Center, the Maine Women's Lobby, and the Sexual Assault Crisis and Support Center of Augusta. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 2007.

Fortman was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1954. A graduate of the University of New Hampshire, she went on to complete a certification course in Senior Executives in State and Local Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University. She earned her master's degree in leadership at Northeastern University.