Durham County Commissioner Wendy Jacobs is Vice Chair of the Board of County Commissioners. The previous four years, she served as Chair of the Board of County Commissioners. Commissioner Jacobs is currently serving her third term of office, first elected in 2012 and having been sworn in again on December 7, 2020. She is a graduate of Duke University with a Bachelor of Arts in History, Magna Cum Laude. As a former educator she received her teaching certification from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and taught in the Durham and Caswell County Public Schools as well as Carolina Friends School. She most recently worked as a project manager for Unique Places, a conservation driven real estate company.

Prior to being elected to office, Commissioner Jacobs was chair of the Erwin Area Neighborhood Group and led the campaign to create Hollow Rock Nature Park, formerly named New Hope Preserve, a 100 acre multi jurisdictional park. She also served as chair of the park master plan committee and six years as a county appointee to the Durham Planning Commission, as well as being an active Durham Public Schools parent volunteer, member of the Superintendent’s Budget Advisory Committee and other community involvements.

She currently serves on many county, regional and state boards and commissions representing Durham County. She is chair of the Durham County Social Services Board, chair of the Durham Chapel Hill Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization (DCHCMPO) and chair of the Durham Joint City County Planning Committee. Commissioner Jacobs is also co-chair of the Triangle J Council of Governments (TJCOG) Smart Growth Committee and Durham Joins Together to Save Lives- the Durham County task force to address substance and medication misuse.

Commissioner Jacobs serves on additional boards and commissions including the Durham Audit Services Oversight Committee, Joint City-County Committee, Violent Crime Roundtable, Lincoln Community Health Center Board of Trustees, Upper Neuse River Basin Association, Discover Durham Tourism Development Authority, TJCOG Smart Water Collaborative and is a member of the North Carolina Central University Board of Visitors.

She is also committed to the National Association of Counties Community, Economic and Workforce Committee as well as the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners Environment Steering Committee and Health and Human Resources Steering Committee.

Commissioner Jacobs completed the Advanced Leadership Corps offered by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Government in 2014, a course offered to municipal and county elected leaders each year. Additionally, she has achieved master level status in the Local Elected Leaders Academy (LELA). The LELA is a partnership with the School of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill, NC Association of County Commissioners, and the NC League of Municipalities offering elected officials the knowledge and skills needed to lead and govern their communities.

She is married to Dr. Michael Meredith, a Duke primary care physician. They have three children who are all graduates of Durham Public Schools; Zach, a graduate of the College of William and Mary, works for a local non profit homeless services provider, Eliza, is a third year law student at the University of California at Berkeley, and Caleb, is a PhD candidate in material science engineering at Pennsylvania State University.