Retired Colonel Laurie Hummel filed on Tuesday with the Alaska Public Offices Commission to run for the Alaska state House against Republican Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux. Her district includes the east side of Anchorage, including Elmendorf Air Force Base.
Hummel is a Democrat. She wasn’t immediately available for comment.
“Our state government should be creating opportunity for Alaskans, not thwarting it,” she wrote in a release. “The legislature is about to drive the state off a fiscal cliff, and this cannot be allowed to happen. I am experienced in developing solutions to complex problems, and working in pressure-filled and resource constrained environments.”
That last part may be an understatement. According to Hummel’s bio, she moved to Alaska in 1996 when she was posted to Elmendorf as Alaskan Command’s Chief of Operations Intelligence. She has served as a policy developer and consultant for various defense agencies, and was part of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, “providing assistance to the leaders of Afghanistan’s fledgling military academy and helping guide that institution toward its first admission of women in 2012,” she wrote.
And that’s not all: She’s a tenured professor at West Point, where she taught in the Geography and Environmental Engineering departments.
She retired as colonel in 2012.
Correction: An earlier version of this story said that Hummel was running against Rep. Andy Josephson.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
