HARRISBURG -- Pennsylvania investments will soon be in the hands of Montgomery County Democrat Rob McCord, a retired venture capitalist who won election to the state treasurer's office last night.

Mr. McCord handily defeated Republican Tom Ellis, also of Montgomery County.

Mr. McCord plans to use his four-year term to work toward creating jobs, helping companies develop and helping Pennsylvanians -- especially women -- become financially secure.

Women are paid less, often take time off work to care for their families and are more likely to take money out of their retirement savings to pay for emergencies, he said.

"I was raised primarily by a single mom who was a teacher and who went through some pretty horrible economic insecurity for almost a decade after her divorce when I was 4, and I thought about her every day as I campaigned," said Mr. McCord, 49. "My passion is to help women with their economic security. One way to do that is to work with the nonprofit sector to increase contributions -- most of which will be charitable --to women's pensions."

Although he lives near Philadelphia, he celebrated his win yesterday at the IBEW Local 5 on Pittsburgh's South Side.

"This is really the heart of Democratic change in Pennsylvania. A lot of people here are understandably nervous about their economic situation, and I wanted to talk with them."

Mr. McCord has degrees from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. He is co-founder of three venture capital funds that invest in life sciences and information technology. He retired from business a year ago to run for office full-time.

Mr. Ellis is a public finance lawyer and former chairman of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners.

He attributed his loss to President-elect Barack Obama's coattails.

"When a presidential candidate is winning [by a sizeable margin] and you're running on the other ticket it's pretty hard to win," he said.

The treasurer controls $20 billion in state investments.