He also served two years as secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Health and Social Services (1987–1988) in the administration of Republican governor Tommy Thompson.
After leaving public office, Cullen was chair of Common Cause Wisconsin, a nonpartisan good government advocacy organization, from 2016 to 2022.
He graduated from Janesville High School in 1962, and went on to attend the nearby University of Wisconsin–Whitewater (then known as Wisconsin State University–Whitewater), where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1966, majoring in political science.
The fourth seat was won by attorney Robert Lovejoy who was making his second attempt at election; Cullen posted a surprisingly strong fifth place finish, however, falling just 58 votes short of the incumbent Edward Grumich.
[7] Later that year, Cullen began teaching social studies at George S. Parker High School in Janesville.
[10] Cullen served less than a year on the City Council; he resigned his seat in early 1971 to accept a job on the staff of newly-elected U.S. representative Les Aspin (D–Racine).
[12] After initially planning to spend one day each week working in Kenosha, Racine, Beloit, Elkhorn, and his home Janesville, the program quickly expanded to visiting many additional smaller communities around the district.
[13] Cullen served three years in that role for Aspin, traveling extensively around the district, earning significant local media coverage, and building a reputation for solving problems with government.
[19] The change of leadership did not lead to a breakthrough on redistricting, however, and a panel of federal judges imposed a punitive remedial plan on the state in June of 1982.
[23] Less than a month later, however, Cullen shocked the Wisconsin political press by accepted appointment as secretary of the Department of Health and Social Services and ruling out a run for governor in 1990.
At the time, Cullen noted that the private sector job would allow him more capacity to care for his infant son and aging mother.
[1] In the early phase of the Great Recession, in June 2008, Governor Jim Doyle tasked Cullen to lead an effort along with local United Auto Workers president Brad Dutcher to find a way to save the Janesville Assembly Plant.
[34] Shortly after the start of the 2011 legislative term, new governor Scott Walker revealed his controversial "Budget Repair" bill.
The bill proposed stripping collective bargaining rights from public employees, prompting massive backlash from state labor unions and their Democratic allies.
The entire affair received significant national media attention, and led to an incident where a journalist managed to trick Scott Walker in a phone conversation into believing he was speaking to billionaire Republican donor David Koch.
"[35] Ultimately, the holdout ended in March when Republicans devised an amendment to the bill to strip out budget-related measures and therefore bypass the quorum requirement.