When Gov. Rick Perry looks up from his desk these days, more often than not, he is surrounded by women.

For the first time in his tenure, his chief of staff and deputy chief of staff are women. So are his director of communications, his press secretary, his heads of scheduling and administration, and his human resources director, along with the bulk of his appointments staff.

In all, about 60 percent of the 256 governors office employees are female. Among Perrys most senior staff those charged with making key decisions for the governor two-thirds are women.

Rick Perry has never needed a binder full of women, said Deirdre Delisi, Perrys first female chief of staff, alluding to Mitt Romneys comments during a presidential debate about how he sought help recruiting women for cabinet posts while he was governor of Massachusetts.

Perrys opponents suggest that his tenure has not been kind to Texas women. The states longest-serving governor has worked to further restrict access to abortion. And he has been unwavering in his desire to force all Planned Parenthood clinics which may not provide abortions if they accept state or federal tax dollars out of a program that provides family planning services to the states poorest women.

But they cannot argue about his hiring practices, especially in light of a New York Times report this month and an ensuing controversy about President Obamas inner circle being dominated by men.

In an interview, Perry said no one should be shocked by the number of women in his administration. I live every day with four strong women, he said, referring to his wife, Anita, his daughter, Sydney, and his two dogs, Rory and Lucy.

And it just so happens, he added, that this particular staff lineup is probably the most experienced, capable and knowledgeable group of people working around me since I started.

But he confessed that the gender makeup in his office, while meaningful, is hardly intentional.

I looked up one day and thought, Thats kind of interesting, he said, then turned to the lone male staffer in the room and joked, Where are all the guys?

Delisi, a political consultant who chaired the states Transportation Commission at Perrys urging after leaving the governors office, said that although the number of women in leadership roles in his administration has reached a new high, it is not novel.

Perry surrounded himself with strong, capable women at the Agriculture Department, in the lieutenant governors office and when he became governor, she said. Being his first female chief of staff, she added, didnt feel like breaking new ground.

Ann Bishop, the former executive director of the Employees Retirement System whom the governor named his chief of staff in November, is accustomed to women stocking the executive offices of state agencies. Throughout her career, she has been a deputy comptroller and was the inaugural head of the states Department of Information Resources. Even she said she was pleasantly surprised to walk into her first staff meeting at the governors office and see how many of her new colleagues were female.

The governor surrounds himself with the brightest and best, she said, and women are obviously part of that mix.

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