Norwegian state secretaries

Jørn Holme (born 16 August 1959) is a Norwegian judge and civil servant.
He grew up at Nordberg, and originally wanted to become a priest. He was active in the Norwegian Christian Student Association while studying. He graduated with the cand.jur. degree from the University of Oslo in 1986. He left a job as research assistant there to do his compulsory military service, then work in the police. In 1988 he was hired as a police inspector for Senja, and from 1990 to 1991 he was an acting judge at Trondenes and Oslo District Courts. From 1991 to 2001 he was a public prosecutor in the Norwegian National Authority for the Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (Økokrim). His work mainly concerned environmental crime. He edited and wrote books during this period, and launched the periodical Miljøkrim. He had short interruptions from this position to be acting presiding judge in Eidsivating in 1993, acting assisting director in the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage in 1997 and acting general prosecutor in the Norwegian Army in 2001.In 2001, when Bondevik's Second Cabinet assumed office, Holme was appointed State Secretary in the Ministry of Justice and the Police. He represented the Liberal Party of Norway. He was recruited by Odd Einar Dørum without any partisan political background. He left politics in 2004 to become the new head of the Norwegian Police Security Service. He succeeded the acting police security director Arnstein Øverkil, who had held office temporarily since Per Sefland resigned the previous year. Holme was the first active politician to be appointed as police security director. The task of the Police Security Service is to conduct domestic intelligence gathering, whereas foreign operations are reserved for the Norwegian Intelligence Service. An amount of coordination between these two bodies as well as the National Security Authority is also involved.In 2006 became a board member of the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments. In June 2009 Holme was announced as the new director of the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage. The previous director Nils Marstein had been appointed while Holme was acting assisting director in 1997, but now withdrew after two six-year terms. It became clear that Holme could not leave the Police Security Service before 22 October; after Nils Marstein left in August Sjur Helseth became acting director. In the Police Security Service, Roger Berg was acting director from 23 October to 10 November, when Janne Kristiansen took over.Holme is married and has three children. They reside in Frogner, Oslo. He has cited his "ideal" as being Johs. Andenæs.

Elsa Rastad Bråten (1 February 1918 – 21 December 1999) was a Norwegian politician for the Labour Party.
She was born in Oslo as a daughter of typographer and politician Ingvald Rastad and Sigrid Hilton.
During the first cabinet Bratteli from 1971 to 1972, Bråten was appointed State Secretary in the Ministry of Justice and the Police. She had served as political secretary (today known as political advisor) in the Ministry of Family and Consumer Affairs from 1959 to 1965.
She served as a deputy representative to the Norwegian Parliament from Oslo during the terms 1973–1977. From 1973 to 1976 she met as a regular representative, replacing Knut Frydenlund who was appointed to the second cabinet Bratteli. On the local level she was a member of Oslo city council from 1955 to 1963.
Bråten did not have a higher education. She worked as a journalist in Arbeiderbladet in 1945-1949 and 1950–1951, editor-in-chief of Arbeiderkvinnen from 1953 to 1959, and a consultant.

Ingvald Godal (26 October 1934 – 28 January 2019) was a Norwegian politician for the Centre Party and later the Conservative Party. For the former party he was a State Secretary as well as mayor of Vinje; for the latter party he served four terms in the Norwegian Parliament. He was also involved in various organizations, most latterly the Norwegian Support Committee for Chechnya.

Arne Strand (17 March 1944 – 10 May 2023) was a Norwegian journalist and politician for the Labour Party. He was the political editor in the newspaper Dagsavisen until his death.
Strand graduated from the University of Oslo with the cand.mag. degree in 1968. He worked as a journalist in Vårt Land from 1964 to 1966, in Arbeiderbladet from 1966 to 1976, and in the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation from 1976 to 1987. Between 1987 and 1989 he was a State Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister, as a part of Gro Harlem Brundtland's second cabinet.Having been political editor and news editor in his later years with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, in 1990 he was hired as political editor in Arbeiderbladet, which in 1997 changed its name to Dagsavisen. He was acting editor-in-chief from 2004 to 2005 and from 2009. From 1999 to 2006 he chaired the Norwegian branch of the International Press Institute.Strand was the adoptive father of the television host Christian Strand.Strand died on 10 May 2023, at the age of 79. He had been ill with cancer for 17 years prior to his death.

Arne Øien (22 December 1928 – 5 October 1998) was a Norwegian economist and politician for the Labour Party. He was Minister of Petroleum and Energy from 1986 to 1989.
He was born in Oslo and graduated as cand.oecon. in 1954. He worked in Statistics Norway from 1955 to 1970, and was hired as a deputy under-secretary of state in the Ministry of Finance in 1971. He kept this job until 1978, when he became advisor of economical matters. From 1980 to 1990 he was the director of Statistics Norway. He was then permanent under-secretary of state in the Ministry of Finance (finansråd) from 1990 to 1995.Having a parallel career in politics, he was a State Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister in 1981 under the first cabinet Brundtland. When the second cabinet Brundtland was formed in 1986, Øien was brought in as Minister of Petroleum and Energy. He lost the job when the second cabinet Brundtland fell following the 1989 election.Øien was a member of the board of Arbeiderbladet from 1981 to 1986 and Oslo Sporveier from 1996 to his death, the last two years as deputy board chairman.

Paul Thyness (10 April 1930 in Aker, Norway – 30 March 2016 in Oslo) was a Norwegian politician for the Conservative Party.
In 1955 he graduated with the cand.philol. degree and majoring in political science at the University of Oslo. He was a member of the board of Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) from 1972 to 1977 and from 1988 to 1992. He authored a number of books.In 1963, during the short-lived Lyng's Cabinet, he was appointed State Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister. He was elected to the Storting (Parliament of Norway) from Oslo in 1965, and was re-elected on three occasions. Paul Thyness was Assistant Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and head of the Bureau for Special Activities of the UNDP in New York from 1980 to 1988.

Eskild Jensen (28 April 1925 – 1 April 2013) is a Norwegian civil servant and politician for the Labour Party.
He was born in Vestre Aker as a son of executive Eskild Jensen Sr. (1876–1955) and teacher Elizabeth Kobro (1889–1985). In 1957 he married civil servant Inger Aarskog. He enrolled at Oslo Commerce School, but as the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany commenced in the same year, Jensen soon prioritized to work in the Norwegian resistance movement. He distributed an illegal newspaper compiled from BBC radio reports; listening to these was also illegal. He was caught by Gestapo in 1942, tortured, and imprisoned in the concentration camps Grini and from May 1943 to 1945 Sachsenhausen.After the war Jensen graduated in economics from the University of Oslo. In 1961 he was hired in the Ministry of Finance. He worked for the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation from 1962 to 1967 and 1969 to 1974. In 1974 he was appointed deputy under-secretary of state in the Ministry of Transport and Communications before serving as State Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister from 1976 to 1980, as part of the Nordli's Cabinet. From 1980 to 1992 he served as director of the Norwegian Directorate of Public Roads.

Jens Mogens Boyesen (9 October 1920 – 20 November 1996) was a Norwegian diplomat and politician for the Labour Party.