What keeps you up at night?

That might be a loaded question for some. If you’re David Casey, Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Revenue and resident of Madison, you already know your answer.

“I’m responsible for securing the tax data of every citizen in the state of Wisconsin,” said David. “Some of the state’s most sensitive information rests on my shoulders.”

As would be expected with a job like David’s, he has a heavy portfolio overseeing everything from fiscal policy advocacy to tax program management to taxpayer collections to the Wisconsin State Lottery. In recent years, he’s led groundbreaking initiatives to modernize tax processing, data security, fraud detection, and digital compliance.

But David is not just bravely leading the department into the future. He is also making history as the first openly LGBTQ+ Secretary of Revenue in the state.

Beyond the data, the budgets, and the ever-present risk of cyberattacks, he’s found not only a deeply satisfying career, but a comforting “bubble of acceptance” in Madison.

Today, David’s life is deeply rooted in the Midwest, but his origins trace back to the West Coast. When he was growing up in California and Oregon in the ‘70s and ‘80s, LGBTQ+ people were invisible in mainstream culture. Although his parents were fundamentally liberal, open, and accepting, he lacked the language and context for his own feelings.

“I didn’t even know what I didn’t know,” said David. 

It wasn’t until he enrolled at Grinnell College in Iowa, which he describes as “extraordinarily open, supportive, and liberal,” that he first encountered openly gay people his own age. While this sparked some reflections on his own identity, David did not actually come out until he was 25.

Following graduation, David relocated to Portland, Oregon, where he began to venture into the local social scene. However, the definitive turning point arrived when he moved across the country to attend graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University. Viewing this transition as a fresh start, he made an empowering decision.

“I’m going to a brand-new environment filled with brand-new people, and I’m going to be who I am.”

He came out and started introducing himself as a gay man, finding the experience remarkably seamless. When he formally came out to his family, their reaction was entirely supportive, wondering only why he had waited so long.

“It was more of a battle with myself than a battle with anybody else,” he said. 

Since graduate school was a significant expense, David pursued a career in the fast-paced world of technology and strategy consulting. This choice set his career path in motion, but it also exposed him in the late 1990s and early 2000s to homophobia.

His very first consulting project was with the Kansas Department of Revenue. On his first day of work, Casey encountered a hateful protest organized by homophobic Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church.

“I was like, what have I gotten myself into?” he recalls. “Seeing this happening in Middle America was like stepping back 20 years.”

His co-workers were welcoming, supportive, and equally embarrassed by the protest, but this jarring experience was a red flag that taught him to keep his guard up.

“As a consultant traveling across 18 states and a dozen countries, I learned not to tell them who I was,” said David. “I took the time to carefully study the culture, so I knew what to expect from them.” 

The most transformative chapter of his adult life happened in the most unexpected of places. He lived in Chicago but traveled throughout the country on a regular basis. While visiting a “really bad gay bar” in a Tallahassee, Florida, strip mall, David struck up a 20-minute conversation with a new friend, Kevin.

The two agreed to a proper date and scheduled it for several weeks later.

That first date? September 11, 2001. 

With all flights grounded after the national tragedy, David found himself stuck in Tallahassee for five days. His extended stay in Florida was an unexpected blessing, as he spent time with Kevin, which he may have not otherwise.

Nine months later, Kevin Hubbard graduated from college and relocated to Chicago to build a life with David. And they have been together ever since.

The couple established themselves in Chicago’s Boystown for five years, but David’s consulting work frequently took him to Madison. Kevin began joining him for weekend visits, and the couple quickly fell in love with the city’s charm. In 2006, they made Madison their permanent home, and they are approaching their 20th anniversary in the city this fall. Madison offered them what they had been seeking all along: a profound sense of belonging that had escaped them in larger, more transient cities.

“We’ve got a real tight-knit community, so much so that our next-door neighbors on either side of us are couples that were friends of ours that we recruited to move to our neighborhood,” he said.

David and Kevin visit the Dane County Farmers’ Market every weekend and take full advantage of their proximity to the UW Arboretum. They go for hikes, run, and cycle, inspired by Kevin’s time working for Trek and his dedication as an Ironman triathlete.

As David laid down his roots, he also connected on a deeper level with his community. Having spent years traveling and leaving town on Mondays only to return on Fridays, he loves being present in his hometown seven days a week. Today, he serves on the investment board for the Madison Museum of Contemporary Arts Foundation and is an active member of the Downtown Madison Rotary Club.

In 2018, the couple married in the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, a space that has always had special meaning to them. After frequent visits over 20 years, his parents retired to Madison to be closer to the couple and the Wisconsin charm.

Tired of the relentless travel of consulting, David submitted his resume to newly elected Governor Tony Evers’s administration in 2019. His decades of specialized experience immediately caught the attention of the administration, leading to his appointment as Deputy Secretary of Revenue under Peter Barca. 

“I finally got to put into practice what I’ve been telling other people to do for 30 years,” he laughed. 

After a brief stint in the private sector, David returned when Barca stepped down, accepting Governor Evers’s invitation to become the Secretary of Revenue. Today, David leads an agency defined by the very values that have shaped his life journey: inclusivity and empathy. He navigates the complexities of data security and public policy with the humble perspective of a man who had to make strategic choices about his own authenticity. 

“I frequently ask my team to take my official photo down from the DOR website,” he said.

Despite the discomfort of being recognized as a public figure, David takes immense pride in his team’s tremendous progress, proving that true leadership thrives in the light.

“This is an impressive place to work, just an incredible agency,” David said. “I’m very, very proud of what we’ve built and what we are building for Wisconsin’s future.”